rumoured engagement, the parents themselves, ever anxious to make it appear to the public as already an event fixed, were the industrious propagators, and this with the design to forward their pretensions. It was with an accent and emphasis characteristic of her ruling passion that Mrs. Blake, on being asked by a lady of her acquaintance whether it were really true that her son was about disposing of himself to the daughter of a Major,—"No, indeed," retorted she with a consequential air; "not to the daughter of a Major, but of a Major-General!" This passing within the hearing of Mrs. De Brooke, she failed not to repeat it to her husband. "Heaven grant it may be so," replied he; "under the many storms and tempests doomed to fall upon my devoted head, it will be a consolation to see my children exempt from my misfortunes." So happy an establishment for his elder daughter he conceived was a desirable presage of one equally fortunate, at some more distant period, for the younger.
