Page:Duty and Inclination 2.pdf/34

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
32
DUTY AND INCLINATION.

nexion for their son with one every way worthy of their most sanguine wishes. But of moderate origin themselves, and conscious of their inferiority, they passionately thirsted after aggrandizement, and to this they fancied themselves entitled on the ground of the very large fortune of which their son was the future inheritor.

Thus circumstanced was Mrs. De Brooke at Bath, while still unconscious of the secret wishes entertained by her friends, when the General having made some important arrangements in the state of his affairs at the Fort, proposed rejoining her.

It will be necessary, however, to retrograde, and give some information of the occurrences which had happened there during his absence.

Having arrived at his late quarters, he found to his mortification that the anonymous letter he had received bore but too faithful a representation of the truth, and that he was in a manner deprived of his command. Of all the afflictions he had formerly endured, none had fallen so heavy as this. Charges brought against him which he was unprepared to vindicate;—the subordinate persons under his command being accused of want of order in their accounts,—Government money