dBooks desire

Many novels had Fanny read, in secret and
at home, in three volumes and in numbers. Periodical literature had
not reached the height which it has attained subsequently, and the
girls of Fanny's generation were not enabled to purchase sixteen pages
of excitement for a penny, rich with histories of crime, murder,
oppressed virtue, and the heartless seductions of the aristocracy; but
she had had the benefit of the circulating library which, in
conjunction with her school and a small brandy-ball and millinery
business, Miss Minifer kept--and Arthur appeared to her at once as the
type and realization of all the heroes of all those darling, greasy
volumes which the young girl had devoured. Mr. Pen, we have seen, was
rather a dandy about shirts and haberdashery in general. Fanny had
looked with delight at the fineness of his linen, at the brilliancy of
his shirt studs, at his elegant cambric pocket-handkerchief and white
gloves, and at the jetty brightness of his charming boots. The prince
had appeared and subjugated the poor little handmaid.


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