THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO THAT BELOVED AUNT AND TRIED FRIEND WHOSE NAME REFLECTS THE LIGHT UPON MY PAGE THAT HER LOVE HAS SHED UPON MY LIFE "You have put me now to such a part, as never SHAKESPEARE. T was in the year we do not exactly know what year-but, it was somewhere between 1848, and 1838: while yet rail roads were few, and potatoes were many, and fast coaches ran daily to hospitable inns ;-before electricity found an alphabet, or sunbeams a pencil, or English gravity a Polka;- while Europe's National Guards were still peaceable shopkeepers, and an equally impregnable divinity seemed hedged round England's merchant princes, and France's Citizen King -in such a year it was, that a house in Portland Place, so long shut up, that people had begun to doubt whether it really could open, or whether like some Lilliputian mansions to childhood dear, the whole front must come off at once, suddenly woke up to life,-unbarred its churlish portals, and drew up its jealous blinds, to admit as much of air and sunshine as a London atmos B phere had to bestow. Long had this house been the wonder of its neighbourhood: year after year had passed away since its purchase by the great merchant, Hugh Armadale; and but for the occasional arrival of packing-cases from abroad, supposed to contain pictures and statues of great value, it would have appeared its owner had forgotten its existence. The heir of an Indian fortune, he had trebled it by some brilliant speculations, and in the prime of life found himself at once, the envied possessor of immense wealth, and the desolate father of a motherless girl. From whatever reason, and his friends suggested many, he at once quitted England, to return no more; and wandered with his child over the continent; spending a month here, and a year there, wherever his fancy listed. Of refined manners, and graceful mind, he was welcomed in the best circles; but his principal delight was in the care of his daughter, on whose adornment in person and talent no money or pains were spared. It is not our intention here to discuss what was lacking or superfluous in this education: whatever Mr. Armadale's future designs might be, they were cut untimely short, and at the age of eighteen, his child was left an orphan. The hatchment darkened the wall of the mansion in Portland Place, bearing the arms of the old knightly house of Armadale, once as famous in the field, as of late it had become in the funds: and now the conjectures exhausted on the father, descended to the child, and all her family connections (near relations she had |