ROMANCE AND REALITY.
CHAPTER I.
"It was an ancient venerable hall."—Crabbe.
"This is she,
Our consecrated Emily."—Wordsworth.
Such a room as must be at least a century's remove from London, large, white, and wainscoted; six narrow windows, red curtains most ample in their dimensions, an Indian screen, a present in which expectation had found "ample space and verge enough" to erect theories of their cousin the nabob's rich legacies, ending, however, as many such expectations do, in a foolish marriage and a large family; a dry-rubbed floor, only to have been stepped in the days of hoops and handings; and some dozen of large chairs covered with elaborate tracery, each chair cover the business of a life spent
