COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

VOL. 1250.

THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER BY G. MAC DONALD, LL.D.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER.

CHAPTER I.

My first Terror.

ONE of the main discomforts in writing a book is, that there are many ways in which everything, as it comes up, might be told and you can't tell which is the best. You believe there must be a best way, but you might spend your life in trying to satisfy yourself which was that best way, and, when you came to the close of it, find you had done nothing-hadn't even found out the way. I have always to remind myself that something, even if it be far from the best thing, is better than nothing. Perhaps the only way to arrive at the best way is to make plenty of blunders, and find them out.

This morning I had been sitting a long time with my pen in my hand thinking what this chapter ought to be about-that is, what part of my own history, or of that of my neighbours interwoven therewith, I ought to take up next, when my third 7600