Aspen Court (Volume 3); A Story of Our Own Time

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1855. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. TWO YEABS AGO. It is to be hoped that the reader has not forgotten a humble, and indeed nameless, actor in one of the preceding scenes, who rendered good aid in the hour of need at the toll-bar between Aspen Court and Lord Rookbury's seat in the country. Small service is true service while it lasts; Of friends, however humble, scorn not one; The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun. Now the big man, who, on hearing little Amy mention the name of their common friend, Bernard Carlyon, suddenly brought what Mrs. Quickly calls a rescue or two, and extricated the Misses Wilmslow from an especially disagreeable position, did in no respect, save that of rendering service, resemble a daisy. But the work which he did on that occasion, and the circumstance that he has other work to do, makes it both grateful and expedient that the secret of Bernard Carlyon's acquaintance with him should be explained. Some months before our story began, it chanced that Mr. Carlyon found it necessary, for one of the mysterious purposes of business, to visit a client who resided at Islington. As this suburb is now as easily reached as Paris or Cairo, it is not necessary, I think, to describe it with any minuteness. The neighbourhood offers but few salient points for the topographer. The wits of the Elizabethan age were as jocose upon the rapid spread of the metropolis, as are the smart men of the present Augustan period; and Islingtonia was in 1600 as clever a name as Tyburnia in 1854. Most antiquaries of ten years old and upwards know the line in which London is spoken of-- I think she means to go to Islington. But the sarcasms of one age are the statistics of the next. London has gone to Islington, and dreary is the ground upo...