other words, on the subject only of some nodes in the orbits of their lives is it the province of this narrative to be diffuse.
Though people and places are here before us in parvo as the seed and vehicle of a history, who shall put limits to the possible extent of good, bad, or indifferent circumstance that, in connection with these few agents and this narrow scene, may have arisen, declined, and been finally deposited in the Past as valuable matter for inspection by eyes who know or care where to find it? If the reader has taken the trouble to look down the list with anything like kindly curiosity, and given a minute of his time to the idle imagination of why such a company was ever brought together by Fate, Chance, Law, or Providence, it promises well. He will perceive that three or four of them are capable characters, whose emotional experiences may deserve some record.
Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emo-
