THE VILLAGE MILLIONAIRE. BY MISS LAMONT, AUTHOR OF "THE FORTUNES OF WOMAN." "And do you think them shames, which are nought else, But the protractive trials of great Jove, To find persistive constancy in man? The firmness of which metal is not found HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1854. 249. W. 128. THE VILLAGE MILLIONAIRE. CHAPTER I. "Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end, Each changing place with that which goes before, Nativity once in the main of light Speeds to maturity." SHAKSPEARE. NATIVITY once in the main of light speeds to maturity! I have never since the spring of life was gone by, read these simple words of our great master of thought and passion, without pausing. Yet, not reflection on the VOL. I. B purpose of life in the sequent toil of its minutes, causes the pause-it is memory alone; for the image of nativity speeding to maturity is magical in bringing back the past. My own past dismissed with a sigh, I often in such moments turn to the past of others, amusing myself in comparing, or contrasting it with what it has been and what I had ex pected it would be. Sometimes selecting one from the crowd of one of my competitors in the race of early existence, I follow him till, at last, breathless, I stop short, wondering at the greatness, or the nothingness, as the case may be; perhaps at the greatness and the nothingness to which he has attained. And how has that career at which I wonder, begun? Most probably as the career of thousands has begun-as that of my friend Benjamin Hardy began. Ay! let me then track his steps from the point where the real interests of the world seem to commence from-"his setting out in life." A phrase of strong import in a country of incessant struggle to be foremost. No one will remain where he is-all press forward. Well! Surely this is good? Surely those feelings were enviable with which Hardy at twenty years of age, portmanteau in hand, climbed the hill before the dwelling of his childhood? He rested at the top and looked around. It was the afternoon of an autumnal day. The morning threatened rain, but it had not fallen, for the wind became sharp and fresh, and drove the clouds in fantastic masses over the sky. One billowy heap of them in the east glowed with a saffron hue from the rays of the sun in the opposite quarter. Bright gleams shot athwart the valley at the young man's feet, and brought out little shining landscapes here and there, whilst large portions of the scene were dark with the shadows of the clouds. Conspicuous in one of the brilliant spots were the towers of Woreham castle; the woods around it with their changing tints, red and |