A MORAL TALE. BY ANNA HARRIET DRURY. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. PHILADELPHIA: G. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-ST. MDCCCXLIX. R.A. FRIENDS AND FORTUNE. CHAPTER I. You have put me now to such a part, as never SHAKSPEARE. It was in the year... we do not exactly know what year-but, it was somewhere between 1848, and 1838: while yet railroads 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 atmosphere had to bestow. Long had this house been the wonder of its neighborhood: 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 |
