"Ah, then, was it all spring weather? Nay! but we were young—and together." SHE had always adored him. From the first moment he came to the house—an overgrown, good-looking schoolboy, and had started to bully and domineer over her, Marie Chester had thought him the most wonderful person in all the world. She waited on him hand and foot, she was his willing bondslave; she did not mind at all when once, in an unusual fit of eloquence, she had confided in him that she thought it was the loveliest thing on earth to have a brother, young Christopher answered almost brutally that she "talked rot, anyway, and that sisters were a bally nuisance!" He looked at her with a sort of contempt for a moment, then added: "Besides, we're not brother and sister, really!" They were not; but their fathers had been lifelong friends, and when George Chester's wife inconsiderately—or so her husband thought—died without presenting him with a son, and almost at the same time young Christopher Lawless was left an orphan, George Chester promptly adopted him.

Rocky's father was a gambler. When scandal caused his disappearance, Rocky sought forgetfulness and enjoyment on a cruise. It had been a dull voyage from London; rough in the Channel, colder and rougher in the Bay, and raining hard at Gibraltar, but at Toulon, when Rocky came aboard, the ship seemed to come to life. Rocky made it her business to be friends with everyone, but before they had reached Port Said, several of the passengers were asking themselves who Rocky really was... Only a strong, silent man aboard knows her past understands Rocky's real worth.

Jessica and Paddy were two very different sisters, in love with the same man... Of all the best-selling romantic novelists, Ruby M. Ayres has the greatest insight into human devices and desires. Her stories mirror the love, the hope and the anguish in every woman's heart. The Man From Ceylon is a story about everyday life and love.