Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/16

4 when you have read it, charge me with ingratitude and unfriendly reserve if you can.

I know you like a long story, and are as great a stickler for particularities and circumstantial details as my grandmother, so I will not spare you: my own patience and leisure shall be my only limits.

Among the letters and papers I spoke of, there is a certain faded old journal of mine, which I mention by way of assurance that I have not my memory alone—tenacious as it is—to depend upon; in order that your credulity may not be too severely taxed in following me through the minute details of my narrative.—To begin then, at once, with Chapter first,—for it shall be a tale of many chapters.—