Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by the Internet Archive HARRY COVERDALE’S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT By Frank E. Smedley, Author of “Frank Fairlegh,” “Lewis Arundel,” “The Fortunes Of The Colville Family,” Etc. London: George Routledge and Sons 1854 [Illustration: 0001] [Illustration: 0007] “Those false alarms of strife, Between the husband and the wife, And little quarrels, often prove To be but new recruits of love; And tho’ some fit of small contest Sometime fall out among the best, That makes no breach of faith and love, But rather (sometimes) serves t’improve.” Butler. PREFACE This Tale of “Harry Coverdale’s Courtship” has been a kind of _enfant terrible_--a thankless child--to its Author. It was originally begun as a short story, but the characters grew and expanded upon his hands, until they forced him to allow them wider proportions than he had originally intended. Then the Magazine in which the tale had been commenced changed owners, and the new proprietor, not being inclined to agree to the arrangements of his predecessor, saw fit to end the story himself, after a much more vivacious and dashing fashion than that of the present “lame and impotent conclusion.” These and other mishaps, _quæ nunc perscribere longam est_, as dear Dr. Valpy’s Latin Grammar has it, have occasioned the story to be written--_à plusieurs reprises_, to use the “correct” phrase. The conclusion of the tale has been perpetrated at a time when, on account of severe nervous headaches, the Author was under strict medical orders not to write a line upon any consideration; and it is with the fear of the doctor before his eyes that he is penning these “few last words.” They are not written in the “forlorn hope” of disarming hostile criticism, but simply to assure those friends who have hitherto looked with an indulgent eye upon his writings, that if “Harry Coverdale’s Courtship” does not come up to any expectations they may have formed from the perusal of his previous works, it is rather the misfortune than the fault, of their grateful and obedient servant, THE AUTHOR. HARRY COVERDALE’S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT. CHAPTER I.--TREATS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. Harry Coverdale stood six feet one in or out of his stockings, rode something over eleven stone, was unusually good, or, as young ladies term it, interesting-looking, numbered six-and-twenty years last grass, and lived at Coverdale Park when he was at home, with five thousand a-year to pay for his housekeeping, of which he spent about two. At the happy moment in which we have the pleasure of introducing him to our readers, he was _not_ at home, at least not literally, though figuratively he appeared to be making himself so very decidedly.