Preface
_ The writing of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away； and the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing. Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but desirous, in doing so, of defending myself against a charge which may possibly be made against me by the critics,--as to which I shall be unwilling to revert after it shall have been preferred.
I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a girl whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in its truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at last from degradation at least to decency. I have not married her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be with her as they would have been had

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