Elinor Wyllys, Volume 1

IT will be well, perhaps, that the reader bear in mind, while running over the following pages, that many passing observations, many trifles, which naturally find their way into any sketch of social life, refer chiefly to things and notions in favour some ten years since; a period which is certainly not beyond the memory of man, but very possibly beyond the clear recollection of some young lady reader, just within her teens. New opinions, new ideas, new fashions have appeared among us since then, and made their way perceptibly. Twenty years' possession constitutes a legal title, if we may believe the lawyers; but a single season is often sufficient for a new fancy— fancies of a serious nature too, sometimes— to take full possession of the public mind, and assume arbitrary control of the premises for the time being, at least.