must bore nobody, but whom every body had a right to bore!
What a life for a free man, born to the use of dogs and horses, pure air, and wide-spreading moors!—no wonder that, although junior partner, and as modest as he was high-spirited, he trod his counting-house floor with a step vigorous and springy as the young captain of a man-of-war, for he felt that he was an emancipated slave; nay, more, a British merchant. If not "monarch of all he surveyed," he was certainly monarch of all he desired, which is probably more than any one of those mighty personages who rule mankind could have honestly asserted.
Lady Anne received her daughter as gracefully, and, perhaps, as affectionately, as she knew how; and she could not look in the open countenance of Charles without seeing that he was much too happy to be looked into insignificance; so she made a virtue of necessity, accepted him graciously "as a son who might hereafter be useful to her, seeing she had the misfortune to be the mother of so many daughters who had not a single brother to protect them." She next adverted to the party she was giving on their account, inquired how far it was possible for Louisa to assist her arrangements, which, being ascertained, retired to her dressing-room, by no means sorry that the lateness of the hour precluded the necessity of delaying them for refreshments.
Yet the young couple gladly remained nearly an
