Excerpt from The Sanctuary Blair Martin stood in the big doorway looking at the gay scene before her. She was tired and glad to get away from the fashionable crowd for a little while, and grateful that the doorway shaded her from curious eyes. Since a small child, and all through the years that her father had been amassing his vast fortune, she had resented and shrunk from the often overheard remarks and the curious gaze people had bestowed upon her. Her sensitiveness to public comment was oddly at variance with the natural independence and frankness of speech she had inherited from her father, Andrew Martin. It was perhaps a legacy from the dead mother whose memory she adored, as a woman of eight and twenty adores a memory cherished by a girl somewhat over seventeen. The incessant noise of the touring cars and roadsters annoyed her as they swept up the long driveway and deposited their gaily dressed occupants by the main tent where Mrs. Weston-Smith received her guests. An unceasing hum of voices, from the low masculine bass to the clearer feminine treble - a gamut of human sound - came to her from the throng scattered over the wide lawns and from the bazaar tables that stood nearer to the trees. From the immense temporary pavilion to the right came the clatter of dishes and again the same incessant noise. She sighed wearily. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.