Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) A SEARCH FOR A SECRET. A Novel. BY G. A. HENTY. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1867. LONDON: WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, W.C. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS CHAPTER II. THE HARMERS OF HARMER PLACE CHAPTER III. "L'HOMME PROPOSE, DIEU DISPOSE" CHAPTER IV. THE LAST OF THE HARMERS CHAPTER V. TESTAMENTARY INTENTIONS CHAPTER VI. THE BISHOP OF RAVENNA CHAPTER VII. SOCIETY GRACIOUSLY CONDESCENDS CHAPTER VIII. INTRODUCED TO THE WORLD CHAPTER IX. THE OLD STORY CHAPTER X. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW CHAPTER XI. LAYING A TRAIN CHAPTER XII. THE EXPLOSION CHAPTER XIII. A BAD BUSINESS CHAPTER XIV. MISSING! CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS. There are towns over which time seems to exercise but little power, but to have passed them by forgotten, in his swift course. Everywhere else, at his touch, all is changed. Great cities rise upon the site of fishing villages; huge factories, with their smoky chimneys grow up and metamorphose quiet towns into busy hives of industry; while other cities, once prosperous and flourishing, sink into insignificance; and the passer by, as he wanders through their deserted streets, wonders and laments over the ruin which has fallen upon them. But the towns of which I am speaking--and of which there are but few now left in England, and these, with hardly an exception, cathedral towns--seem to suffer no such change. They neither progress nor fall back. If left behind, they are not beaten in the race, for they have never entered upon it; but are content to rest under the shelter of their tall spires and towers; to seek for no change and to meet with none; but to remain beloved, as no other towns are loved, by those who have long known them--assimilating, as it were, the very natures of those who dwell in them, to their own sober, neutral tints.