Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1846. Excerpt: ... ELLEN MIDDLETON. CHAPTER I. "Whit thousand voices pass through all the rooms, What cries and hurries! - - - My cousin's death sits heavy on my conscience: hark! * - - - In every room confusion, they 're all mad, Most certain all stark mad within the house." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 1 Was born and educated in the house of my uncle, Mr. Middleton, one of the wealthiest squires in D--shire. He had received my mother with kindness and affection, on her return from India, where she had lost her husband and her eldest child. She was his youngest and favourite sister, and when after having given birth to a daughter she rapidly declined in health, and soon after expired, bequeathing that helpless infant to his protection, he silently resolved to treat it as his own, and, like most resolutions formed in silence, it was religiously adhered to. At the time of my birth, my uncle was about forty years old; a country gentleman in the most respectable sense of the word. Devoted to the improvement of his tenants on the one hand, and to that of his estate on the other; zealous as a magistrate, active as a farmer, charitable towards the poor, and hospitable towards the rich, he was deservedly popular with his neighbours, and much looked up to in his county. He had been attached in his youth to the daughter of a clergyman of eminent abilities and high character, who resided in the neighbourhood of Elmsley. For six years his father had opposed his intended marriage with Miss Selby, and when at the end of that time he extorted from him a reluctant consent, it was too late to press his suit; she was dying of a hopeless decline, and to choer her few remaining days of life by every token of the most devoted affection, and after her death to mourn deeply a...