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A Story of

PLEBEIANS AND PATRICIANS.

BY

HON. HENRY W. HILLIARD,

EX-MEMBER OF UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM ALABAMA.

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that."

BURNS.

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. - VOL. 'I.

New-York:

BLELOCK & COMPANY, 19 BEEKMAN STREET,

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by

HENRY W. HILLIARD,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York,

JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN,
Printers,

16 & 18 Jacob Street, New-York.

WHEN every worldly thought is utterly forsaken,
Comes the starry midnight felt by life's gifted few,
Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken
To a being more intense, more spiritual and true.
So doth the soul awaken,

Like that youth to night's fair queen.

The Awakening of Endymion.

DE VANE·

A Story of

PLEBEIANS AND PATRICIANS.

CHAPTER I.

AND ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

A nymph, a naiad, or a grace

Of finer form or lovelier face!

—LADY OF THE LAKÉ.

AN October sun was shedding his dying splendors upon earth and sky. The level rays bathed the valley through which the river poured its swift current in warm light, and gilded the spires of the little capital seated on the eastern bank of the stream with a richer lustre than gold could give. A purple haze rested upon the landscape, and the tints which the sky wore were of that soft and delicate kind, peculiar to a southern climate in autumn.

Two young gentlemen were walking arm in arm on the river-bank, observing the effect of the light as the waters. rushed over the adjacent falls and flowed at their feet, the spray touched by the glowing hues of departing day. A ferry-boat, or flat, as it was called in the dialect of the country, had just reached the opposite bank, and a travelling

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