Set in Silver

About the book

Audrie Brendon feels deeply indebted to Ellaline Lethbridge, whose assistance once helped her continue her education. When Ellaline's guardian returns from abroad and threatens to disrupt a secret marriage plan, she asks Audrie to take her place for several weeks. Audrie's letters to her mother record her reluctance, her comic observations, and the moral pressure behind her eventual involvement. Traveling with Sir Lionel Pendragon makes it increasingly difficult to reconcile Ellaline's alarming descriptions of him with direct experience. The English motor journey supplies changing scenery and occasions for misunderstanding, while the correspondence allows readers to follow judgments as they form and alter. Beneath the romantic comedy lies a question about whether repaying kindness can justify lending another person a false identity.

• Gratitude and obligation
• Identity and deception
• Judgment and experience

Why read it

The letters make Audrie's changing opinions and uneasy conscience part of the comedy itself.

English text of the 1913 Doubleday, Page edition, with the 1909 copyright statement