Books with author L. T. Meade

All the other children who knew her thought Maggie a wonderfully fortunate little girl. She was sometimes spoken about as the "Little Princess of Tower Hill," for Tower Hill was the name of her father's place, and Maggie was his only child. The children in the village close by spoke of her with great respect, and looked at her with a good deal of longing and also no slight degree of envy, for while they had to run about in darned and shabby frocks, Maggie could wear the gayest and daintiest little dresses, and while they had to trudge sometimes even on little bare feet, Maggie could sit by her mother's side and be carried rapidly over the ground in a most delicious and luxurious carriage, or, better still, she might ride on her white pony Snowball, followed by a groom.

FORTUNE'S BALL I was born a month after my father's death, and my mother called me after him. His name was John Westenra Wickham, but I was Westenra Wickham alone. It was a strange name for a girl, and as I grew up people used to comment on it. Mother loved it very much, and always pronounced it slowly. She was devoted to father, and never spoke of him as most people do of their dead, but as if he were still living, and close to her and to me. When a very little child, my greatest treat was to sit on her knee and listen to wonderful stories of my brave and gallant father. He was a handsome man and a good man, and he must have possessed, in a large degree, those qualities which endear people to their fellows, for surely it was no light cause which made my mother's beautiful brown eyes sparkle as they did when she spoke of him, and her whole face awake to the tenderest life and love and beauty when she mentioned his name. I grew up, therefore, with a great passionate affection for my dead father, and a great pride in his memory. He had been a Major-General in a Lancer regiment, and had fought many battles for his country, and led his men through untold dangers, and performed himself more gallant feats than I could count. He received his fatal wound at last in rescuing a brother-officer under fire in Zululand, and one of the last things he was told was that he had received his Victoria Cross. During my father's lifetime mother and he were well off, and for some years after his death there did not appear to be any lack of money. I was well educated, partly in Paris and partly in London, and we had a pretty house in Mayfair, and when I was eighteen I was presented to Her Gracious Majesty by mother's special friend, and my godmother, the Duchess of Wilmot, and afterwards I went a great deal into society, and enjoyed myself as much as most girls who are spirited and happy and have kind friends are likely to do. I was quite one and twenty before the collapse came which changed everything. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but our gold vanished like a dream, and we found ourselves almost penniless. "Now what are we to do, Westenra?" said mother

Excerpt:I was born a month after my father's death, and my mother called me after him. His name was John Westenra Wickham, but I was Westenra Wickham alone. It was a strange name for a girl, and as I grew up people used to comment on it. Mother loved it very much, and always pronounced it slowly. She was devoted to father, and never spoke of him as most people do of their dead, but as if he were still living, and close to her and to me. When a very little child, my greatest treat was to sit on her knee and listen to wonderful stories of my brave and gallant father. He was a handsome man and a good man, and he must have possessed, in a large degree, those qualities which endear people to their fellows, for surely it was no light cause which made my mother's beautiful brown eyes sparkle as they did when she spoke of him, and her whole face awake to the tenderest life and love and beauty when she mentioned his name.

Excerpt:"Upstairs, or downstairs, or in my lady's chamber," replied Daddy. "Don't you bother about it, Heather. No, I don't want to play at being burgled to-night. Sit close to me; lay your little head on my breast."I did so. I could feel his great heart beating. It beat in big throbs, now up, now down, now up, now down again.Dinner was brought in, and I forgot all about the ring in the delight of watching the preparations, and of seeing the grand, tall waiter laying the table for two. He placed a chair at one end of the table for father, and at the other end for me. This I did not like, and I said so. Then father requested that the seats should be changed and that I should sit, so to speak, in his pocket. I forget, in all the years that have rolled by, what we had for dinner, but I know that some of it I liked and some I could not bear, and I also remember that it was the dishes I could not bear that father loved. He ate a good deal, and then he took me in his arms and settled me on his knee, sitting so that I should face him, and then he spoke."Heather, how old are you?"I was accustomed to this sort of catechism, and answered at once, very gravely:"Eight, Daddy.""Oh, you are more than eight," he replied, "you are eight and a half, aren't you?""Eight years, five months, one week, and five days," I said."Come, that is better," he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Always be accurate when you speak. Always remember, please, Heather, that it was want of accuracy ruined me.""What is ruined?" I asked. "What in the world do you mean?"

L. T. Meade was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844–1914), a prolific writer of girls' stories. She was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, County Cork. She later moved to London, where she married Alfred Toulmin Smith in September 1879. She began writing at 17 and produced over 300 books in her lifetime, being so prolific that not less than eleven new titles under her byline appeared in the first few years after her death. She was primarily known for her books for young people, of which the most famous was A World of Girls, published in 1886.