interest which I confess has never subsided.

Many years after, as will sometimes happen, a flood of light was
unexpectedly poured over the details of his narrative; on my coming into
possession of the diary, curiously minute, and the voluminous
correspondence of Rebecca, sister to General Chattesworth, with whose
family I had the honour to be connected. And this journal, to me, with
my queer cat-like affection for this old village, a perfect
treasure--and the interminable _bundles_ of letters, sorted and arranged
so neatly, with little abstracts of their contents in red ink, in her
own firm thin hand upon the covers, from all and to all manner of
persons--for the industrious lady made fair copies of all the letters
she wrote--formed for many years my occasional, and always pleasant
winter night's reading.

I wish I could infuse their spirit into what I am going to tell, and
above all that I could inspire my readers with ever so little of the
peculiar interest with which the old town has always been tinted and
saddened to my eye. My boyish imagination, perhaps, kindled all the more
at the story, by reason of it being a good deal connected with the
identical old house in which we three--my dear uncle, my idle self, and
the queer old soldier--were then sitting. But wishes are as vain as
regrets; so I'll just do my best, bespeaking your attention, and
submissively abiding your judgment.




CHAPTER I.