"They shan't hurt ye, miss. Get ye in; I don't care a d----!" he said in a wild, fierce whisper. To me it was the voice of an angel. He drove over the grass so that our passage was noiseless; then, on reaching the highway, at a gallop. At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I could not speak, but ran, with a loud, long scream, into Cousin Monica's arms. I forget a great deal after that.
It was not till two years afterwards that I learnt that Uncle Silas was found next morning dead of an overdose of laudanum, and that Dudley had disappeared.
Milly married her good little clergyman. I am Lady Ilbury now, happy in the affection of a beloved and noble-hearted husband. A tiny voice is calling "Mamma;" the shy, useless girl you have known is now a mother, thinking, and trembling while she smiles, how strong is love, how frail is life.
RENÉ LE SAGE
Gil Blas
Except that he was born at Sarzeau, in Brittany, on May 8, 1668, and that he was the son of the novelist Claude le Sage, little is known of the youth of Alain René le Sage. Until he was eighteen he was educated with the Jesuits at Vannes, when, it is conjectured he went to Paris to continue his studies for the Bar. An early marriage drove him to seek a livelihood by means of literature, and shortly afterwards he found a valuable and sympathetic friend and patron in the Abbé de Lyonne, who not only bestowed upon him a pension of about £125, but also gave him the use of his library. The first results of this favour were adaptations of two plays from Rojas and Lope de Vega, which appeared some time during the first two or three years of the eighteenth century. Le Sage's reputation as a playwright and as a novelist rests, oddly enough, in each case on one work. As the author of "Tuscaret," produced in 1709, he contributed to the stage one of the best comedies in the French language; as author of "The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillana" he stands for all time in the front rank of the world's novelists. Here he brought the art of story-writing to the highest level of artistic truth. The first and second parts of the work appeared in 1715, the third in 1724, and the fourth in 1735. Le Sage died at Boulogne on November 17, 1747.
I.--I Start on my Travels
My uncle, Canon Perez, was a worthy priest. To live well was, in his opinion, the chief duty of man. He lived very well. He kept the best table in the town of Oviedo. I was very glad of this, as I lived with him, my parents being too poor to keep me.