Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net The Late Miss Hollingford BY ROSA MULHOLLAND (LADY GILBERT) Author of "Cynthia's Bonnet Shop" "Giannetta" "Hetty Gray" "Four Little Mischiefs" &c. _ILLUSTRATED_ BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND DUBLIN [Illustration: RACHEL RETURNS TO HER MOTHER.] PREFACE. "The Late Miss Hollingford" was published a good many years ago in the pages of _All the Year Round_. It has never till now been re-published in England, though it has been translated into French under the title of _Une Idee Fantasque_, and issued by the Bleriot Library, with a preface by M. Gounod. It has also appeared in Italian. In the Tauchnitz Collection it is bound in with _No Thoroughfare_, having been chosen by the late Charles Dickens as a pendant for his own story in a volume of that series. Mr. Dickens was so pleased with this tale, and some others by the same author, then a very young beginner, that he wrote asking her to contribute a serial story of considerable length to his journal. "The Late Miss Hollingford" (the title of which was chosen by Mr. Dickens himself) comes now asking for a favourable reception from the public, in the name of the great master of English fiction--long passed away from among us. CHAPTER I. A dear old lady tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. The moors beyond the window take strange expressions in the twilight, and fold mysteries into their hollows with the shadows of the night. The maids in the kitchen sing wild ballads to one another round the ingle; and when one of us young folks threads the rambling passages above to fetch a stray thimble from one of the lavender-scented bed-rooms, she comes back flying down the great hollow staircase as if a troop of ghosts were at her heels. It is the time to enjoy a story, a true story, the story of a real life; and here it is, as our dear old lady is telling it to us. * * * * *