The Project Gutenberg EBook of East Lynne, by Mrs. Henry Wood

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Title: East Lynne

Author: Mrs. Henry Wood

Release Date: April 5, 2006 [EBook #3322]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST LYNNE ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

EAST LYNNE

by Mrs. Henry Wood

PREPARER'S NOTE

This text was prepared from an 1883 edition, New York: John B.
Alden, Publisher.

EAST LYNNE

CHAPTER I.

THE LADY ISABEL.

In an easy-chair of the spacious and handsome library of his town-house,
sat William, Earl of Mount Severn. His hair was gray, the smoothness
of his expansive brow was defaced by premature wrinkles, and his once
attractive face bore the pale, unmistakable look of dissipation. One of
his feet was cased in folds of linen, as it rested on the soft velvet
ottoman, speaking of gout as plainly as any foot ever spoke yet. It
would seem--to look at the man as he sat there--that he had grown old
before his time. And so he had. His years were barely nine and forty,
yet in all save years, he was an aged man.

A noted character had been the Earl of Mount Severn. Not that he had
been a renowned politician, or a great general, or an eminent statesman,
or even an active member in the Upper House; not for any of these had
the earl's name been in the mouths of men. But for the most reckless
among the reckless, for the spendthrift among spendthrifts, for the
gamester above all gamesters, and for a gay man outstripping the gay--by
these characteristics did the world know Lord Mount Severn. It was
said his faults were those of his head; that a better heart or a more
generous spirit never beat in human form; and there was much truth in
this. It had been well for him had he lived and died plain William Vane.
Up to his five and twentieth year, he had been industrious and steady,
had kept his terms in the Temple, and studied late and early. The
sober application of William Vane had been a by word with the embryo
barristers around; Judge Vane, they ironically called him; and they
strove ineffectually to allure him away to idleness and pleasure.
But young Vane was ambitious,