Lady Betty Across the Water

Lady Betty is of the age to “come out,” but her plainer older sister has simply got to be married off before she can, as the family has plenty of respectability but no money. When an American aristocrat (a lady at the top of the Five Hundred) offers to give her a holiday in America, her mother immediately accepts to get her out of the way and in the way of her own chance at a marriage that will provide a well-filled purse.

Betty writes a hilarious tale filled with all sorts of things, from the handsome steerage passenger who risks his life jumping overboard after a small boy who falls off their ocean liner, to the lady in Newport who tries to literally force Betty into a marriage with that lady's creepy brother who is old enough to be Betty's father. The book contains some truly laugh-out-loud one-liners–and Jim Brett. Every girl needs a mysterious Jim Brett in their lives.