1912. Rives, a member of one of America's oldest families and the wife of a prominent American diplomat, authored The Modern and Complete Book of Etiquette. As a novelist she wrote several best sellers of which The Valiants of Virginia was one. The book begins: Failed! ejaculated John Valiant blankly, and the hat he held dropped to the claret-colored rug like a huge white splotch of sudden fright. The Corporation-failed! The young man was the glass of fashion, from the silken ribbon on the spotless Panama to his pearl-gray gaiters, and well favored-a lithe stalwart figure, with wide-set hazel eyes and strong brown hair waving back from a candid forehead. The soft straw, however, had been wrung to a wisp between clutching fingers and the face was glazed in a kind of horrified and assiduous surprise, as if the rosy peach of life, bitten, had suddenly revealed itself an unripe persimmon. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.