The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope

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Title: Mr. Scarborough's Family

Author: Anthony Trollope

Release Date: May 2, 2004 [eBook #12234]
Most recently updated: June 15, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY

BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE

1883

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

MR. SCARBOROUGH.

It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back
more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain
with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which
led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say
that these first four chapters of the book--though they may be thought
to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents
for their interest in a tale--are in this way only preliminary.

The world has not yet forgotten the intensity of the feeling which
existed when old Mr. Scarborough declared that his well-known eldest son
was not legitimate. Mr. Scarborough himself had not been well known in
early life. He had been the only son of a squire in Staffordshire over
whose grounds a town had been built and pottery-works established. In
this way a property which had not originally been extensive had been
greatly increased in value, and Mr. Scarborough, when he came into
possession, had found himself to be a rich man. He had then gone abroad,
and had there married an English lady. After the lapse of some years he
had returned to Tretton Park, as his place was named, and there had lost
his wife. He had come back with two sons, Mountjoy and Augustus, and
there, at Tretton, he had lived, spending, however, a considerable
portion of each year in chambers in the Albany. He was a man who,
through many years, had had his own circle of friends, but, as I have
said before, he was not much known in the world. He was luxurious and
self-indulgent, and altogether indifferent to the opinion of those
aroun