ll the future on the happiness that is to be found with such a
companion."

As usual, Anna heard me in silence. That she did not, however, view
matrimony with exactly the same eyes as myself was clearly proved the
very next day, for young Sir Harry Griffin (the father was dead) offered
in form and was very decidedly refused.

Although I was always happy at the rectory, I could not help feeling
rather than seeing that, as the French express it, I occupied a false
position in society. Known to be the expectant of great wealth, it was
not easy to be overlooked altogether in a country whose government is
based on a representation of property, and in which boroughs are openly
in market; and yet they who had obtained the accidental advantage
of having their fortunes made by their grandfathers were constantly
convincing me that mine, vast as it was thought to be, was made by my
father. Ten thousand times did I wish (as it has since been expressed
by the great captain of the age), that I had been my own grandson; for
notwithstanding the probability that he who is nearest to the founder of
a fortune is the most likely to share the largest in its accumulations,
as he who is nearest in descent to the progenitor who has illustrated
his race is the most likely to feel the influence of his character,
I was not long in perceiving that in highly refined and intellectual
communities the public sentiment, as it is connected with the respect
and influence that are the meed of both, directly refutes the inferences
of all reasonable conjectures on the subject. I was out of my place,
uneasy, ashamed, proud, and resentful; in short I occupied a FALSE
POSITION, and unluckily one from which I saw no plausible retreat
except by falling back on Lombard street or by cutting my throat.
Anna alone--kind, gentle, serene-eyed Anna--entered into all my joys,
sympathized in my mortifications, and appeared to view me as I was;
neither dazzled by my wealth nor repelled by my origin. The day she
refused young Sir Harry Griffin I could have kneeled at her feet and
called her blessed!

It is said that no moral disease is ever benefited by its study. I was a
living proof of the truth of the opinion that brooding over one's wrongs
or infirmities seldom does much more than aggravate the evil. I greatly
fear it is in the nature of man to depreciate the advantages he actually
enjoys and to exaggerate those which are denied him. Fifty times during
the six month