Thank you for checking out this book by Theophania Publishing. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you soon. We have thousands of titles available, and we invite you to search for us by name, contact us via our website, or download our most recent catalogues. Stoddard's telegram was brought to me on the Glenarm pier at four o'clock Tuesday afternoon, the fifth of June. I am thus explicit, for all the matters hereinafter described turn upon the receipt of Stoddard's message, which was, to be sure, harmless enough in itself, but, like many other scraps of paper that blow about the world, the forerunner of confusion and trouble. My friend, Mr. John Glenarm, had gone abroad for the summer with his family and had turned over to me his house at Annandale that I might enjoy its seclusion and comfort while writing my book on Russian Rivers. If John Glenarm had not taken his family abroad with him when he went to Turkey to give the sultan's engineers lessons in bridge building; if I had not accepted his kind offer of the house at Annandale for the summer; and if Paul Stoddard had not sent me that telegram, I should never have written this narrative. But such was the predestined way of it. I rose from the boat I was caulking, and, with the waves from the receding steamer slapping the pier, read this message: STAMFORD, Conn., June 5. Meet Miss Patricia Holbrook Annandale station, five twenty Chicago express and conduct her to St. Agatha's school, where she is expected. She will explain difficulties. I have assured her of your sympathy and aid. Will join you later if necessary. Imperative engagements call me elsewhere. STODDARD.