Very devoted servant,
CHARLES LEVER.
Casa Capponi, Florence, March, 1857.
JACK HINTON, THE GUARDSMAN
CHAPTER I. A FAMILY PARTY
It was on a dark and starless night in February, 181—, as the last carriage of a dinner-party had driven from the door of a large house in St. James's-square, when a party drew closer around the drawing-room fire, apparently bent upon that easy and familiar chit-chat the presence of company interdicts.