Page:The Lady's Book Vol. IV.pdf/1



the early part of my professional career I found amusement for some of that un- occupied time of which young lawyers have so much, in noting down such features of the few cases then entrusted to me, as appeared to me curious or approaching to the romantic. As business increased [ found the entries in my docket rapidly supplanting my note book in claims on my partiality, and by degrees the me- moranda in the latter, affected rather the con- ciseness of mercantile correspondence, than the luxuriant verbiage of juridical composition, so that the extended narrative of my earlier years, soon degenerated into an elliptical index or table of reference to the incidents I wished to pre- serve. And now in the leisure of a retired bar- rister, I find pleasure in reviewing the light la- bours of my youth, and occasionally weaving for the amusement of a few old friends,a tale of truth, from the recorded hints of my younger days.

I was one evening in the midst of winter sitting before a glowing mass of coals, slowly but brightly sinking into ashes, indulging those wild yet de- lightful reveries which a warm fire, especially in the absence of all other light, is so apt to sug- gest. The wind was howling drearily without, and the light rattling of an occasional hailstone, rather aided than interrupted the wayward flights of fancy in which I half unconsciously was in- dulging. My meditations however were put to the rout by a low, ill assured tap at the door; “Come in,” responded I, in a tone scarcely as bland as the gentle application seemed to demand, for in truth that light knock was the crash of a glorious palace in the air. The door opened and a muffled female figure entered the circle of light of which my coal stove formed the centre. Some- what vexed at having been caught in the dark and apparently asleep, (for it could scarcely be thought that I had been reading or doing any of the acts of a waking man, in so dim a light) I lighted my lamp and invited my visitor to a seat. Upon throwing back the collar of her camblet cloak and the thick veil that shielded her fea- tures, at once from observation and from, the piercing cold of the blast, a countenance of sur- passing beauty was developed. So much was«I taken “at fault” by this unexpected revelation, that I remember that I could scarcely collect my ideas to understand the purpose of this unhoped for visitor; at that time it must be kept‘in mind that I was young and modest, however subse- quent intercourse with the world may have wrought the ruin of those amiable traits of cha- racter. I found, however, that my client was the orphan niece of the late Mr. Ferrars, a man of princely fortune, who had taken charge‘of her from her childhood. During his life every luxury that wealth could obtain was at her command; her equipage was the admiration of the fashion- able, and the é@ntertainments at her uncle’s splendid mansion, formed 8 topic of conversation for the winter. Mr. Ferrars while thus lavishing the advantages of his affluence on his lovely niece, found in the object of his favour, a friend, a companion, in whose society he could forget the unkindness of fate, which had made his own son and only child, the “‘amari aliquid,” the drop of gall that poisoned his otherwise enviable lot. From his early childhood, Augustus Ferrars had given proofs of that singular depravity of dispo- sition, that the observer of human nature would pronounce to have been produced only by a long intercourse with one of the lower class of society, with the vile and thedegraded. With a formand features of high and commanding cast, with talents that might have made him the ornament of society, his favourite associates were servants, gamblers and jockeys, to whose debasing com- pany he resorted with an eagerness and relish that in one of his aristocratic family seemed a species of insanity. For many years his indulgent parent, though heart broken on account of his