The Great Miss Driver

The Great Miss Driver is one of Anthony Hope's renowned and lovely cheeky heroine novels. There is a strange mystery surrounding Nicholas Driver, a wealthy tanner who had planned to buy out much of the town of Catford. The lonely Miss Driver becomes acquainted with the narrator and tells him her story. Excerpt: "Cartmell's talk, as we drove back, was calculated to give her an almost overwhelming idea of her possessions and (if her temperament set that way) of her responsibilities. Big commercial buildings, blocks of shops, whole streets of small houses, drew from the lawyer a point of the finger and a brief, "That's yours"—or sometimes he would tell how her father had bought, how built, and how profited by the venture. Every time she would turn her head to look where his finger pointed, and nod slightly, gravely, composedly."