If he did not, his family generally did; but, at all events, during their absence, or during their residence, constant employment was given, every working-day in the year, to at least one hundred happy and contented poor from a neighboring and dependent village, every one of whom was of the Roman Catholic creed.
I have stood, not long ago, upon a beautiful elevation in that demesne, and, on looking around me, I saw nothing but a deserted and gloomy country.

The happy village was gone--razed to the very foundations--the demesne was a solitude--the songs of the reapers and mowers had vanished, as it were, into the recesses of memory, and the magnificent palace, dull and lonely, lay as if it were situated in some land of the dead, where human voice or footstep had not been heard for years.
The stranger, who had gone out to view the town, found, during that survey, little of this absence of employment, and its consequent destitution, to disturb him.

Many things, it is true, both in the town and suburbs, were liable to objection.
Abundance there was; but, in too many instances, he could see, at a glance, that it was accompanied by unclean and slovenly habits, and that the processes of husbandry and tillage were disfigured by old usages, that were not only painful to contemplate, but disgraceful to civilization.
The stranger was proceeding down the town, when he came in contact with a ragged, dissipated-looking young man, who had, however, about him the evidences of having seen better days.

The latter touched his hat to him, and observed, "You seem to be examining our town, sir ?" "Pray, what is your name ?" inquired the stranger, without seeming to notice the question.
"Why, for the present, sir," he replied, "I beg to insinuate that I am rather under a cloud; and, if you have no objection, would prefer to remain anonymous, or to preserve my incognito, as they say, for some time longer." "Have you no alias, by which you may be known ?" "Unquestionably, an alias I have," replied the other; "for as to passing through life, in the broad, anonymous sense, without some token to distinguish you by, the thing, to a man like me, is impossible.

I am consequently known as Frank Fenton, a name I borrowed from a former friend of mine, an old school-fellow, who, while he lived, was, like myself, a bit of an original in his way.