Hello, welcome to the Bore You to Sleep podcast, the podcast that will hopefully help you get to sleep.

I am going to read an open source book, one that is not particularly interesting, but one that is

hopefully boring enough to get you to sleep to tonight is called A Lost Lady. It's written by Willa

Arthur. And published in 1923 September by Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher in the United States of America.

It tells a story of Marion Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester, who live in the western town of Sweetwater, along the Transcontinental Railroad.

I hope you enjoy it, but not enjoy it enough, because it is supposed to keep you sleepy and hopefully get you to sleep. Enjoy.

30 or 40 years ago in one of those grey towns along the Burlington Railroad,

which are so much greyer today than they were then. There was a house

well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere.

Well known, that is to say, to the railroad aristocracy of that time.

Men who had to do with the railroad itself, all with one of the land companies which were

its by-products. In those days it was enough to say of a man that he was connected with the Burlington.

There were the directors, the general managers, vice presidents, superintendents,

whose names were all new, and their younger brothers or nephews were auditors,

freight agents, departmental assistance.

Everyone connected with the road, even the large cattle and grain shippers had annual passes.

They and their families rode about over the line a great deal.

There were then two distinct social strata in the prairie

states, the homesteaders and hand workers who were there to make a living, and the bankers and

gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic Sea board to invest money and to develop our Great

West as they used to tell us.

When the Burlington men were travelling back and forth on business, not very urgent, they

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