Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ''. '- n. v-., ' It was the last day of July. TSa Jong hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weany'jsilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of "Hie cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes ow the-'sea-shore. For my own poor paVtt tht fading summer left me out of health, out of spirits, and, if the. truth must be told, out of money as well. During the past year, I had not managed my professional resources as carefully as iisuaj-; and my extravagance now limited me to the prospect of spending the autumn economically between my mother's cottage at H,Jrupstead, and my own chambers in town. The eVening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was it.its heaviest; the distant hum of the street traffic was at ito faiptest;the small pulse of the life within me and the great heart of th'e city around me seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs. It was one of the two evenings in every week which I was accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. So I turned my steps northward, in the direction of Hampstead. Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in this place that my father had been dead some years at the period of which I am now writing, and that my sister Sarah and I were the sole survivors of a family of five children. My father was a drawing- master before me. His exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labors, had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much la...