Dross

by Henry Seton Merriman

These are the waning days of Napoleon III, when there are still glories to be beheld in the streets and courts -- yet while a sense of impending change hangs over the boulevards. Dispossessed, Howard takes a poorly-paying post with the Vicomte de Clerisy, who lives in a quarter of Paris still blessed with ancient, gloomy streets and narrow alleys. Yet it is not for the work alone he has entered the de Clerisy household -- for he was enchanted by his first glance of the Vicomte's daughter, Lucille. Dick fears he has fatally mishandling matters, however -- for he represented himself in ways that seemed true enough, but which time is proving to be falsehoods . . . and now he has failed to patch up matters with his father, who has cut off his inheritance! Yet there is a greater mystery afoot -- something Dick Howard must understand and confront -- that will shake this peaceful-seeming Parisian household to its very core.

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Hugh Stowell Scott was an English novelist (under the pseudonym of Henry Seton Merriman).

Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1862, he became an underwriter at Lloyd's of London, but then devoted himself to travel and to writing novels, many of which had great popularity. Scott visited India as a tourist in 1877-8 and set his novel Flotsam (1896) there. He was an enthusiastic traveller, many of his journeys being undertaken with his friend and fellow author Stanley J. Weyman. He was unusually modest and retiring in character. He died of appendicitis at the age of about forty at Melton, Suffolk.