The Autobiography of a Slander by Edna Lyall

At last the tea came up, and so With that our tongues began to go. Now in that house you're sure of knowing The smallest scrap of news that's going. We find it there the wisest way To take some care of what we say. _Recreation_. JANE TAYLOR.

I was born on the 2nd September, 1886, in a small, dull, country town. When I say the town was dull, I mean, of course, that the inhabitants were unenterprising, for in itself Muddleton was a picturesque place, and though it laboured under the usual disadvantage of a dearth of bachelors and a superfluity of spinsters, it might have been pleasant enough had it not been a favourite resort for my kith and kin.