The Caxtons — Volume 06 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 1 of 33 (03%)
page 1 of 33 (03%)
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PART VI.
CHAPTER I. "I don't know that," said my father. What is it my father does not know? My father does not know that "happiness is our being's end and aim." And pertinent to what does my father reply, by words so sceptical, to an assertion so seldom disputed? Reader, Mr. Trevanion has been half an hour seated in our little drawing-room. He has received two cups of tea from my mother's fair hand; he has made himself at home. With Mr. Trevanion has come another friend of my father's, whom he has not seen since he left college,--Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Now, you must understand that it is a warm night, a little after nine o'clock,--a night between departing summer and approaching autumn. The windows are open; we have a balcony, which my mother has taken care to fill with flowers; the air, though we are in London, is sweet and fresh; the street quiet, except that an occasional carriage or hackney cabriolet rolls rapidly by; a few stealthy passengers pass to and fro noiselessly on their way homeward. We are on classic ground,--near that old and venerable Museum, the dark monastic pile which the taste of the |
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