But in general, while describing the actions and setting down the words, I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers must feel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is just as much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course that they may have taken as there is in the case of our actual living contemporaries.
But why then, you may ask, do I write this preface, which must, if nothing else had done so, destroy any such sense of truth and reality? Why, my American friends, because I am told that a great many of you are pleased to wish for some explanation. I am sure you more than deserve of me some efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunity of saying how truly I think so; and besides, even if I had declined to give it, I know very well that for all my pains you would still have never been beguiled into the least faith as to the reality of these two stories!
I. A WATCHER OF LILIES II. THE LESSON III. GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS IV. SWARMS OF CHILDREN V. OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN VI. THE SHADOW OF A SHADE VII. AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL VIII. THEY MEET AN AUTHOR IX. SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER."--CANADA X. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES XI. WANTED A DESERT ISLAND XII. VALENTINE XIII. VENERABLE ANCIENTRY XIV. EMILY XV. THE AMERICAN GUEST XVI. WEARING THE WILLOW XVII. AN EASY DISMISSAL XVIII. A MORNING CALL XIX. MR. MORTIMER GOES THROUGH THE TURNPIKE XX. THE RIVER XXI. THE DEAD FATHER ENTREATS XXII. SOPHISTRY XXIII. DANTE AND OTHERS XXIV. SELF-WONDER AND SELF-SCORN XXV. THAT RAINY SUNDAY XXVI. MRS. BRANDON ASKS A QUESTION XVII. THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY XXVIII. MELCOMBE XXIX. UNHEARD-OF LIBERTIES XXX. A CHAPTER OF TROUBLES XXXI. A WOMAN'S SYMPATHY XXII. MR. BRANDON IS MADE THE SUBJECT OF AN HONOURABLE COMPARISON XXXIII. THE TRUE GHOST STORY XXXIV. VALENTINE AND LAURA XXXV. A VISIT TO MELCOMBE XXVI. A PRIVATE CONSULTATION XXXVII. HIS VISITOR
"Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."--_Collect, English Communion Service._
In one of the south-western counties of England, some years ago, and in a deep, well-wooded valley where men made perry and cider, wandered little and read less, there was a hamlet with neither farm nor cottage in it, that had not stood two hundred and fifty years, and just beyond there was a church nearly double that age, and there were the mighty wrecks of two great oak-trees, said to be more ancient still.