



Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online
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                          A ROMANCE OF TORONTO.

                           (FOUNDED ON FACT.)

                                A NOVEL.

                        BY MRS. ANNIE G. SAVIGNY

   _Author of "An Allegory on Gossip," "A Heart-Song of To-day," etc._


    TORONTO:
    WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 & 80 KING STREET EAST.

    1888.

    Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
    one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, by _Mrs. Annie Gregg
    Savigny_, at the Department of Agriculture.


     "I would like the Government to forbid the publication of all
     novels that did not end well."--DARWIN.

     "What would the world do without story-books."--DICKENS.


[Illustration: TORONTO UNIVERSITY, QUEEN'S PARK.]




NOTE.


_In the following pages are two plots, one of which was told me by an
actor therein; the other I have myself watched from its first page to
its last, being living facts in living lives of fair Toronto's
children._

_THE AUTHOR._




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. Toronto a Fair Matron

CHAPTER II. Who is Who in a Medley

CHAPTER III. Instantaneous Photographs

CHAPTER IV. The Foot-ball of Circumstance

CHAPTER V. A Bona Dea

CHAPTER VI. Coffee and Chit-Chat

CHAPTER VII. Across the Sea to a Witch's Caldron

CHAPTER VIII. A Troubled Spirit

CHAPTER IX. Vultures Habited as Christian Pew-holders

CHAPTER X. A Lucifer Match

CHAPTER XI. Their "Rank is but the Guinea's Stamp"

CHAPTER XII. On the Rack

CHAPTER XIII. Lucifer's Votaries Rampant

CHAPTER XIV. Fencing Off Confidence

CHAPTER XV. The Tree of Knowledge

CHAPTER XVI. The Oath in the Tower of Toronto University

CHAPTER XVII. Birds of Prey

CHAPTER XVIII. The Islet-gemmed St. Lawrence

CHAPTER XIX. Eye-openers

CHAPTER XX. "Your Een Were Like a Spell"

CHAPTER XXI. A Happy New Year

CHAPTER XXII. "Better Lo'ed Ye Canna Be"

CHAPTER XXIII. The Three Links

CHAPTER XXIV. A Hand of Ice Lay on Her Heart

CHAPTER XXV. "Here Awa', There Awa'"

CHAPTER XXVI. Electric Tips Among the Roses

CHAPTER XXVII. A Serpent in Paradise

CHAPTER XXVIII. Squaring Accounts

CHAPTER XXIX. "Mair Sweet Than I Can Tell"




A ROMANCE OF TORONTO.




CHAPTER I.

TORONTO A FAIR MATRON.


Two gentlemen friends saunter arm in arm up and down the deck of the
palace steamer _Chicora_ as she enters our beautiful Lake Ontario from
the picturesque Niagara River, on a perfect day in delightful September,
when the blue canopy of the heavens seems so far away, one wonders that
the mirrored surface of the lake can reflect its color.

"Do you know, Buckingham, you puzzle me; you were evidently happier in
our little circle at the Hoffman House than in billiard, smoking, or
reading-rooms, and just now in the saloon you seemed so content with
Miss Crew, my wife and our boy, that I again wonder a man with these
tastes, and who has made his little pile, does not marry," said Mr.
Dale, in flute-like tones, distinctly English in accent. "I really
think, my dear fellow, you would be happier in big New York city with
some one in it to make a home for you."

"I am quite sure your words are kindly meant, Dale, but look at me," he
says tranquilly, "I am not dwarfed by care, being six feet in my
stockings, I have no worrying lines written on my forehead, and between
you and I, I am fifty; to be sure I am bald and grey, but that is New
York life, a bachelor life, then, has not served me ill; there is a
woman at Toronto I should like as my wife, but until I can give her the
few luxuries I now deem necessities, I shall remain as I am."

"I regret your decision, Buckingham, it is a rock many men split on,
this waiting for wealth and missing wifely companionship."

"Perhaps you are right; but I should not care to risk it," he says,
calmly.

"And you a speculator!" his friend said, smiling. At this they drifted
into business and some joint investments in Canadian mineral locations,
when Dale said:

"You must excuse me now, Buckingham,