Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers.THACKERAY, Roundabout Papers.

HARPER'S

LIBRARY OF SELECT NOVELS.

HARPER & BROTHERS will send either of the following Works by Mail, postage pre-paid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the Price.

"LIVE IT DOWN," "OLIVE BLAKE'S GOOD WORK," "ISABEL; OR, THE
YOUNG WIFE AND THE OLD LOVE,"

NOT DEAD YET. 8vo, Paper, $1 25: Cloth, $1 75.

LIVE IT DOWN. A Story of the Light Lands. 8vo, Paper. 75 cents. OLIVE BLAKE'S GOOD WORK. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.

ISABEL; or, The Young Wife and the Old Love. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

Sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price.

NOT DEAD YET.

CHAPTER I.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ATTENTION!

THE attention of all who peruse this strange story is particularly requested. They are asked to take good heed of little incidents and allusions, of slight touches and delicate hints, not less than of the more striking events and impressive features of the narrative. The writer prefers this petition less for his own advantage than for the sake of his readers. The tale is so far removed from the commonplace, its positions are so startling, its action is necessarily so dramatic, and the game played by its characters is at the same time so delicate and so daring, that no amount of artistic shortcoming on the part of the narrator will make it otherwise than interesting to those who find pleasure in stories of lively action and singular complications.

But the teller of this tale wishes to effect in the minds of readers more than the degree of satisfaction necessary for the maintenance of his reputation as a writer of prose fiction. He wishes for the approval of those whom he seeks to entertain; but above and beyond this wish for mere approval, he has a desire to confer on those whom he addresses the greatest possible amount of pleasure, and on leaving them he would fain feel assured that they have not, through inadvertence, missed the significance of aught which he has placed before them.

The main facts which constitute the chief plot of this story, were brought to the writer's notice many months since; and when he first entertained the purpose of weaving them into a work of imagination, he sought and obtained leave to use them, according to his judgment, from Sir Edward and Lady Starling, of Gamlinghay Court, county Hants, and Miss Ida Newbolt, without whose unreserved permission he would never have presumed to render public occurrences which form a painful episode in the history of an honorable family.

also were communicative to the full extent of their knowledge. Having received and carefully digested all the evidence which he could procure from living witnesses, the writer visited several spots in which certain scenes of this domestic drama occurred, and he spared no pains to familiarise himself with the localities and events which, in the course of his narrative, he will either allude to, or particularly describe.

CHAPTER II.

NOT LONG SINCE.

THE date with which this story commences is not far away in the past. Indeed, it is so near the present time, that some of the principal characters of the drama are still in the prime of life.

The year was a grand one to have lived in; it is an instructive one to those who reflect upon it. A year great in folly and the crimes to which folly gives birth; memorable for the suffering it witnessed; memorable, also, for sublime virtues exhibited, and noble acts done within its cycle. The nations of Europe had not yet entered on the revolutionary movements of 1848. When the rush for new things was made in that same '48, careless men said that the storm had been preceded by a suspicious lull pervading the political life of the time to which attention is now especially directed; yet whilst this season of imputed lull was being shifted to the immutable past by the mighty hand of the Everlasting, there was much being done on the surface of the earth-enough to make devout men more fervent than heretofore in prayerenough to perplex the simple and startle the frivolous-enough to trouble the brave and fill their hearts with anxiety for the future.

The

It was a year when men who liked to talk about politics had an abundant supply of topics in events, foreign and domestic. French had their brilliant affairs in Algeria; Portugal was carrying on a grim contest with That permission having been accorded, insurrection in her northern provinces; Spain the writer proceeded to collect the materials was in a ferment about matrimonial projects for his history with every attention to those which by no means met with universal satisminute points on which the accuracy of bio-faction; in Poland there was a sharp contest graphic labor depends. From Sir Edward and Lady Starling, and Miss Ida Newbolt, he received the details of incidents and transactions which could never have been brought fully to light if their lips had been sealed with regard to their past suffering and shame, and the crime of a bad man who repaid their friendship with treachery, and requited their love with grievous wrong. Other persons

between Liberty and General Collin; and California joined hands with the United States, whilst that happy family made war upon the Mexicans. England, too, had her peculiar causes of disquiet and fear, her particular sources also of mirth and gratulation. In Ireland, poor people died of hunger, whilst rich men were removed by assassination; in India, Sir Harry Smith won the battle of Ali