The Warden

And in 1921, Mary sits down to read a novel.

It is The Warden by Anthony Trollope.

Published in 1855, it tells the story of a kindly clergyman caught in a dispute over money at a charitable institution.

Mary places the book on the optophone.

So she deliberately decides to read writers who differ widely in style.

She reads Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, an autobiography by Herman Charles Maryvale, and others.

And she finishes The Warden.

But even as Mary becomes more proficient, the future of the optophone is becoming less certain.

Chapter One of The Warden.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Nick Whitley, Purley, United Kingdom.

The Warden by Anthony Trollope.

Chapter One: Hiram's Hospital.

The Reverend Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of, let us call it Barchester.

From that day to this the charity had gone on and prospered: at least, the charity had gone on and the estates had prospered.