people, hurrying from place to place, badgered and baited and hated, always abused, often in peril of my life, and under all hazard compelled to send home every week from six to eight columns of matter to a London newspaper. To those who may accuse me of idleness or carelessness, I can only plead that I was the correspondent for twelve months in the United States and Mexico of the Daily Telegraph.

As regards "Quite Alone," I had undertaken a task which I was utterly unable to accomplish. It Iwas the Thirteenth labour of Hercules: the last straw; and it broke my back. When I endeavoured subsequently to catch up the lost link, I found that it was too late. The conductors of " All the Year Round," reduced to desperation by the non-arrival of any more copy, and anxious to keep faith with their readers, confided my unfinished story to "another hand," by whom it was brought to a close, sans bien que mal. Till I returned to England I never knew who that other hand was. Under the circumstances, it is impossible for me to complain of the manner in which the selection was made; and I am sure that I am infinitely beholden to the gentleman who, at a very brief notice, addressed himself to such an unthankful task.

Returning, then, to commence fresh labours and incur fresh literary responsibilities, I found, to my dismay, that "Quite Alone" was advertised for re

publication in a collected form. In common justice to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, in whose interest the book was originally projected, I could not deny my consent to its being so republished. Those gentlemen had treated me throughout with infinite liberality, courtesy, and forbearance; and I felt that I had no right to spoil their market and to keep their capital lying dead, when the delay to which they had been subjected was due simply to my own laches.

In conclusion, I beg respectfully to say that if the public will receive the first edition of "Quite Alone" in a tolerant and charitable spirit, and if the demand for it should warrant the issue of another edition, it will be my duty and pleasure to complete it according to the original plan mapped out, and to the very best of my ability. And that charity and tolerance I am confident enough to hope for from a public whose laborious servant I have been for sixteen years.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.

64, Guildford-street, Russell-square,

December, 1864.

QUITE ALONE.

CHAPTER I.

SEULE AU MONDE.

THIS is Hyde Park, at the most brilliant moment in the afternoon, at the most brilliant period in the season. What a city of magnificence, of luxury, of pleasure, of pomp, and of pride, this London seems to be. Can there be any poor or miserable people-any dingy grubs among these gaudy butterflies? What are the famed Elysian fields of Paris, to Hyde Park at this high tide of splendour? What the cavalcade of the Bois de Boulogne, or the promenade of Longchamps, to the long stream of equipages noiselessly rolling along the bank of the Serpentine? Everybody in