Love Me Little, Love Me Long

by Charles Reade



PREFACE

SHOULD these characters, imbedded in carpet incidents, interest the
public at all, they will probably reappear in more potent scenes. This
design, which I may never live to execute, is, I fear, the only excuse
I can at present offer for some pages, forming the twelfth chapter of
this volume.



CHAPTER I.

NEARLY a quarter of a century ago, Lucy Fountain, a young lady of
beauty and distinction, was, by the death of her mother, her sole
surviving parent, left in the hands of her two trustees, Edward
Fountain, Esq., of Font Abbey, and Mr. Bazalgette, a merchant whose
wife was Mrs. Fountain's half-sister.

They agreed to lighten the burden by dividing it. She should spend
half the year with each trustee in turn, until marriage should take
her off their hands.

Our mild tale begins in Mr. Bazalgette's own house, two years after
the date of that arrangement.