Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ... THE ELECTION. "Hey for the humours of an election, my matters." The events of our tale commence on the evening previous to that memorable election, which agitated "the kingdom of Connaught" to its centre, by the daring and novel attempt to lay the axe to the widely spread and deeply fixed roots of a powerful family, that had for nearly half a century represented one of the fairest counties in that ancient and far-famed kingdom. But though Connaught might be turned topsyturvy by politicians of all sorts and sizes, there was no sympathetic turmoil in the aspect of the evening. The sun was sinking beautifully beneath a canopy of gorgeous, many-hued clouds, bestowing his parting smiles (in the locale where our little drama commences) on one of the greenest slopes in "the green isle," and tinting the early summer leaflets on the trees that crested its ascent, in fine contrast with the dark trunks massed in shadow beneath. A handsome modern mansion, (Belview, ) with its rich plantations, crowned the summit of the slope, and a gentle stream swept round its base, reflecting, in colours almost as vivid as their own, the sunset clouds above. At the skirting of one of the plantations adjoining her u paternal hall," stood, or rather paced restlessly, a young and lovely girl, not unworthy the scene, though her heart was not now attuned to its calm beauty. Little did Margaret Chambers at present heed the magic of sunset on foliage and grass and stream: as little did she regard the cattle, that, lending animation--though a motionless animation--to the landscape, gazed placidly into the fairy stream--the hares, that fearlessly scudded, like summer shadows, across the sun-lit lawn, and the smoke-wreaths that, ascending in graceful spires into the blue...
