Some years
later, in the height of his prosperity--I reveal this only for your
comfort, and on your sacred promise as a person of delicacy, never to
repeat it to a soul--Richard Hardie was a suitor for my hand."
"Mamma!"
"Do not ejaculate, sweetest. It discomposes me. 'Nothing is
extraordinary,' as that good creature Dr. Sampson says. He must have
thought it would _answer,_ in one way or another, to have a gentlewoman
at the head of his table; and I was not penniless, _bien entendu._
Failing in this, he found a plain little Thing, with a gloomy temper, and
no accomplishments nor graces; but her father could settle twenty
thousand pounds. He married her directly: and that is a trait. He sold
his father's and grandfather's house and place of business, in spite of
all their associations, and obtained a lease of his present place from my
uncle Fountain: it seemed a more money-making situation. A trait. He
gives me no reason for rejecting my daughter. Why? because he is not
proud of his reasons: this walking Avarice has intelligence: a trait. Now
put all this together, and who more transparent than the profound Mr.
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