When I was a little boy--I am now an old man of sixty--'Aunt Oliver,' as we used to call my father's widowed sister, was in the habit of paying long visits at my father's house. She had not long been a widow; and though past the meridian of life, was still a beautiful woman. But what made her so exceedingly popular with all my father's children was her repeated kindnesses, displayed to us in the shape of various useful and ornamental gifts, carefully chosen to suit our several ages and characters; but above all, her wonderful condescension in giving up her own pursuits on many a winter's night, that she might recount to us, as we sat grouped around the nursery fire, some of the incidents of her varied and eventful life. She had been a great traveller in her day, having been to Rome, and even visited the Holy Land; and what is more, she had written a book of travels! a circumstance which caused us to regard her with a strange curiosity almost amounting to awe; a feeling on our part which, but for her uniform kindness, might have detracted from that universal love we one and all bore towards her. One of my aunt's adventures made a strong impression on my youthful mind, and is even now, after a lapse of half a century, still fresh in my recollection. Thinking it might serve to divert those who have a fancy for the humorous, I have gathered up the threads of the story from the storehouse of my memory, and now present it in narrative form, under the foregoing title.
My uncle, Mr Oliver Brown, was in the iron trade; and in connection with his business, which was a very large one, was in the habit of paying periodical visits to the manufacturing town of Bolton, near to which his principal iron-works were situated. He usually paid these visits alone; but on the occasion of which I am about to speak he was accompanied by my aunt, who deemed it her duty to be with her husband, as it was winter-time and he had only just recovered from a severe illness. It was late in the evening of a bleak November day that the coach which conveyed Mr and Mrs Oliver Brown from their comfortable country-seat, distant some fifty miles from Bolton, entered the noisy ill-paved streets of that bustling town, and proceeded to what at that period was the principal inn of the place. Both travellers were tired by their journey, and after a hasty dinner, were glad to retire to rest.