GALE MIDDLETON.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street:

CALIFORNIA

GALE MIDDLETON.

CHAPTER I.

"This, this is holy; while I hear
These vespers of another year,

This hymn of thanks and praise,
My spirit seems to mount above
The anxieties of human love,
And earth's precarious days."

"A piteous lot it were,

To flee from man and not rejoice in nature."

WORDSWORTH.

So affectionate was the nature of our traveller, that, although he disliked London, and had ever been warmly attached to the country, more especially to his own sequestered retreat of Brookshaw Lodge, he could not quit the paternal roof without a deep dejection of spirits. There were few more fond or indulgent fathers than Sir Matthew, who, in the recent illness of his son, had evinced a deep and constant

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