THE HOUSE OF ELMORE. A FAMILY HISTORY. "When will the ancient curse be still'd, that weighs SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. THE HOUSE OF ELMORE. CHAPTER I. MY SISTER. THE Great City is in its height of season, and fashion holds pre-eminence; London is wreathed with garlands, and sown with sparkling diamonds. The opera is open, and carriages rank thick before its colonnade-lords and ladies, waiting for the last notes of the prima-donna, or lingering for the ballet, lounge in their draperied boxes and voluptuouslycushioned stalls. London is in its season, and holding its rare holiday! Labour plods on as ever, early in the morning, ere the sun has gilded London streets, and creeping back at night, jaded, and worn out with toil; men of businessmen bent upon making thousands in a day— jostle one another in their hurry for the gold, in the close, stifling streets, where the houses are narrow, and heaped together, and dark as cavern mouths-where the cool breeze never comes, and where the banks and merchants' firms are; prisons are full, as well as palaces, and Want, with shrivelled bony arms, still batters at the workhouse-gates! I have been three days in London, and the change has already worked upon me a salutary effect. I am less depressed. My one cankering grief is so small, so lost in the stream of sorrows passing by me, and in which I have no share. Thoughts grave as my own, hearts as heavy, faces as full of listless apathy, I meet at every step. I am but one in a despairing myriad. For the first time since my arrival in town, I am being ushered into a grandly-furnished apartment in the mansion of Sir John Boyington, Park Lane, and Sir John himself rises from his chair to greet me. "What, Mr. Elmore!" he cries, shaking hands violently with me; "this is an unexpected pleasure. Caught me quite alonean ocean bird." The mysterious valet of the powerful build, who has been seated close to Sir John's side, rises at my entrance, and walks towards the door. "Yes, Sir John," he answers very respectfully; "if I am required, will it please you to ring." He looks at me somewhat significantly, and takes his departure, not heeding Sir John's cries of "But you've not finished the story, Twidger. Did the Queen of Morocco catch him?” We are together, and Sir John says to me, apologetically 66 Capital fellow that for stories-spin a yarn with any old salt in the king's pay, I'll wager my head. Take a seat, Mr. Elmore. How's your father?" This is a question that sets every fibre in my body vibrating, as though I were struck |