Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. The Table of Contents was not present in the original text and has been produced for the reader's convenience. The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain. TALES OF MY TIME. BY THE AUTHOR OF BLUE-STOCKING HALL. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. WHO IS SHE? LONDON: HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1829. J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, Parliament Street. WHO IS SHE? "As a stranger give it welcome." HAMLET. ADVERTISEMENT. The following story is founded on facts which came within the knowledge of the writer. The precise point at which truth ends, and fiction begins, it is not necessary to divulge; but in an age when an avidity for the stimulus of real adventure seems in a great degree to have superseded the love of mere romance, it may not be uninteresting to state that the heroine of the following pages is not altogether a creature of imagination. CONTENTS Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X CHAPTER I. "Oh! this is trim!"--TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. At not more than a stone's throw from a neat market town, in a certain shire of England, lived Francis Hartland, Esq. in a well-built square house, which was separated from the King's high road, by a lawn of twenty acres. Round this lawn a double row of handsome elms lined a ring fence, and formed the outer boundary, in that part next the house, of a bank covered with all sorts of shrubs, which sloped in a gradually inclined plane, from the shining laurel to the dwarf cistus, and met a broad belt of gravel, hard and smooth as marble, through which no upstart weed ever dared to force its way. This walk was fringed by a border of flowers, in such variety of glowing tints, that lawn and all might be aptly compared to a robe of green velvet, trimmed with a phylactery of broidered work, worthy of Sheba's Queen in all her glory, while the whole exhibited such precision and nicety in the keeping, as to suggest the idea that its owner, in league with the fairies, possessed some secret charm against every noxious reptile and devouring fly. This _Snuggery_ was not the hereditary right of Mr. Hartland, but was purchased for valuable consideration, and he came to live in it, nobody knew from whence, or how incited.