Category: Historical Novels

A Romance of Toronto (Founded on Fact): A Novel

Two gentlemen friends saunter arm in arm up and down the deck of the palace steamer _Chicora_ as she enters our beautiful Lake Ontario from the picturesque Niagara River, on a perfect day in delightful September, when the blue canopy of the heavens seems so far away, one wonde...

Chapters

1. CHAPTER I.

Two gentlemen friends saunter arm in arm up and down the deck of the palace steamer _Chicora_ as she enters our beautiful Lake Ontario from the picturesque Niagara River, on a p...

2. part I may pass). Here it is:

"Toronto is a fair matron with many children, whom she has planted out on either side and north of her as far as her great arms can stretch. She lies north and south, while her...

3. CHAPTER II.

"Oh, I reckon a New York boy can elbow his way through that mean crowd." And darting through the mass of people, causing the collapse of not a few tournures, and with the aid of...

4. CHAPTER III.

"Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed and the insane levity of choosing our associates by other's eyes," re...

5. CHAPTER IV.

As they near a knoll under a clump of trees commanding a view of the road, a gentleman sauntering up the street gazes, as many do, at Holmnest with its pretty grounds.

6. CHAPTER V.

In animated converse with her guests during the half-hour ere dinner is announced, the mistress of Holmnest makes a picture one's eyes dwell on--the folds of her soft summer gow...

7. CHAPTER VI.

"What a lovely little home you have, Mrs. Gower," said her friend, Mrs. Smyth, seating herself near her hostess, the pale blue plush of the padded chair contrasting well with he...

8. CHAPTER VII.

Broadlawns, on the outskirts of Bayswater, London, England, on the evening Charles Babbington-Cole, from Toronto, Canada, is expected, is all aglow with lights; its exterior a g...

9. CHAPTER VIII.

With mingled feelings of disinclination and repulsion, also an undefined sense of dread and reluctance, poor C. Babbington-Cole left the _City of Chicago_ and, again on _terra f...

10. CHAPTER IX.

"Welcome to England and Broadlawns," said the spider to the fly, his ferret-like eyes scanning his victim eagerly, as if to read whether he would give him trouble. "We have been...

11. CHAPTER X.

"Rev. Mr. Parks, Mr. Babbington-Cole, of whom you have heard us speak, from Canada," said Miss Villiers; and Bengough's modern curate of the conventional type flashed across the...

12. CHAPTER XI.

"And what does our Diogenes find to say?" said Mrs. Gower, gaily, as on the night of the 9th November she gathered a few friends to supper, after an evening at the Grand Opera H...

13. CHAPTER XII.

It was no heated fancy of a half-delirious brain of our poor friend, Cole, that he had heard a tap on the gloomy door of the east chamber, at Broadlawns, on the night he was sna...

14. CHAPTER XIII.

"Yes, Silas Jones shall hear of how we found his precious Sarah Kane alone in a man's bedroom," sneered the coldly cruel voice of Mrs. Cole, entering, and not making a seductive...

15. CHAPTER XIV.

The knowledge that, with the morning, her friend would look for a confidence as regarded the intrusion by a man into the grounds of Holmnest on the evening previous, unless, ind...

16. CHAPTER XV.

"Your visitor is a strikingly handsome man, Mrs. Gower," said Mr. Dale, coming from the window to the table; "we shall be losing you one of these days as--Mrs. Gower," he contin...

17. CHAPTER XVI.

"Yes, dear, draw over your rocker, he will not return, and since you are willing, I shall pour my griefs into the lap of your mind; seeking, as you say, to lessen the dead weigh...

18. CHAPTER XVII.

In the neat little parlor, with flowering plants in the window, its walls adorned with old-time Scripture prints and modern play-bills in droll blending, back of the shop-room f...

19. CHAPTER XVIII.

On a morning late in December Mrs. Gower sat alone in her pretty restful library, with its olive-green velvet cushions and hangings, its water-lilies, like the beauties in our b...

20. CHAPTER XIX.

On the morning of All Saints' Day, and while numerous bells, in tuneful voices, reminded London of souls departed, and souls to be saved, Silas Jones and his twin spirit, Sarah...

21. CHAPTER XX.

The silver chimes of the mantel clock rang four p.m., as Mrs. Gower descended from her sewing-room on the last day of the old year. She looked well in a gown of soft, grey silk,...

22. CHAPTER XXI.

"A Happy New Year! A Happy New Year!" is on every tongue, and how exhilarating is the cry uttered by thousands. From the weakly voice of our aged loved ones, to the bird-like no...

23. CHAPTER XXII.

After a substantial luncheon, to which they bring good appetites, given by their exhilarating outing in the frosty air, they cross the hall to the drawing-room, when Thomas open...

24. CHAPTER XXIII.

On a cold afternoon, in January's third week, when fair Toronto's children wore the colors of Old Boreas; when the spirits of the air floated on the frozen breaths of humanity,...

25. CHAPTER XXIV.

It is a cold, frosty night, the moon and clouds seeming to have a game of hide-and-go-seek across the sky, when Mrs. Dale is already enveloped in her warm dark blue blanket suit...

26. CHAPTER XXV.

The following is an ideal Canadian winter day; the sky, a far-off canopy of brightest blue, with no clouds to obscure the sunbeams, which pour down on fair Toronto, melting the...

27. CHAPTER XXVI.

During luncheon, Mrs. Gower, seeing that her companions seem too full of busy thought to be talkative, exerts herself keeping up a constant flow of little nothings, requiring no...

28. CHAPTER XXVII.

Had a bombshell exploded in their midst there could not have been more pity, astonishment, and dismay, than was felt by the group of friends in the pretty little drawing-room, a...

29. CHAPTER XXVIII.

On the evening of the day on which the Coles' had arrived, and Miss Crew had come out in her true colors as Pearl Villiers, the heiress, in which her step-sister, Mrs. Cole, was...

30. CHAPTER XXIX.

On an evening at the close of February, when the mercury has risen so high that all nature is in a melting mood; the snowy mantle of winter disappearing fast on the warm bosom o...