Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scans provided by the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/delawareorruined03jame (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) 2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe]. DELAWARE; OR THE RUINED FAMILY. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY M. AITKEN, 1, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. DELAWARE; OR THE RUINED FAMILY. A TALE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH; AND WHITTAKER & CO., LONDON. MDCCCXXXIII. DELAWARE; OR, THE RUINED FAMILY. CHAPTER I. I do most sincerely believe, that the very best way to get all the characters of this book out of their manifold difficulties, would be, to end the work at the close of the second volume, and leave the world to settle it, as it liked. However, as the great object is, to make known the truth, and as the chances are infinite, that no single individual of the millions who intend to read this book, would, by the utmost exertion of their imagination, discover what the truth is, it may be necessary to go on, and explain what has become of some at least of the characters which have slipped off the stage Heaven knows where--especially as they have each much to do, and to suffer, before they "sleep the sleep that knows no waking." The great advantage of autobiography is, that a man never troubles his head about other people's affairs, but goes on with his own tale till he has done with it; whereas the unfortunate wretch who undertakes to tell the history of a number of other people, has no better a life of it than a whipper-in, and is obliged to be continually trotting up and down, flogging up his straggling characters to a pace with the rest. The reader, too, may get his brains most tremendously puzzled in the mean time. But what can be done? If people will not write their own stories, other people must write them for them, and the work must go on as best it may. Under these circumstances, we must request the gentle reader to bring back his mind, or his eyes, to the end of the fourth chapter of the last volume, since which precise point we have neglected entirely the history of Henry Beauchamp. However, amends shall immediately be made to that gentleman, and he shall have the whole of this volume to himself. Let it be remembered, then, that he set out from the dwelling of the miser at Ryebury, promising that punctilious person to return, and sign at once the more formal and regular documents, for which the necessary stamps were still to be procured from Emberton--that he passed William Delaware on his road, concealing himself from him as he did so; and the reader, if he be so pleased, may dip his hand into the wallet of imagination, and take out his own particular little scheme, for leaving the money with which Beauchamp was burdened, in the chamber of--Blanche Delaware's brother.