Excerpt from Dora Barton, the Banker's Ward: A Tale of Real Life in New York Ir was a cold, raw, cheerless night, in the month of December, 18 The northeast wind was howling fiercely through the streets, and the few scattering flakes of snow which came down gave warning of the approach of a severe storm. Pedestrians were hurrying homewards with their faces muffled up as they breasted the wintry blast, and the streets wore an aspect of desolation and solitude unusual at that time of night, for the clock had just sounded the hour of eight. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.