together for a long while, but breaks to pieces on an attempt to
move it, he fell down on his own threshold under a paralytic
affection.

The tutor awakened as from a dream. He saw his patron dead, and
that his patron's only remaining child, an elderly woman, now
neither graceful nor beautiful, if she ever had been either the
one or the other, had by this calamity become a homeless and
penniless orphan. He addressed her nearly in the words which
Dominie Sampson uses to Miss Bertram, and professed his
determination not to leave her. Accordingly, roused to the
exercise of talents which had long slumbered, he opened a little
school and supported his patron's child for the rest of her life,
treating her with the same humble observance and devoted attention
which he had used towards her in the days of her prosperity.

Such is the outline of Dominie Sampson's real story, in which
there is neither romantic incident nor sentimental passion; but
which, perhaps, from the rectitude and simplicity of character
which it displays, may interest the heart and fill the eye of the
reader as irresistibly as if it respected distresses of a more
dignified or refined character.

These preliminary notices concerning the tale of Guy Mannering and
some of the characters introduced may save the author and reader
in the present instance the trouble of writing and perusing a long
string of detached notes.

I may add that the motto of this novel was taken from the Lay of
the Last Minstrel, to evade the conclusions of those who began to