her parents. They
died and left an only daughter (upon whom the maternal L1000 had been
settled), about the time that the squire came of age and into possession
of his estates. And though he inherited all the ancestral hostility
towards the Sticktorights, it was not in his nature to be unkind to a
poor orphan, who was, after all, the child of a Hazeldean. Therefore he
had educated and fostered Jemima with as much tenderness as if she had
been his sister; put out her L1000 at nurse, and devoted, from the ready
money which had accrued from the rents during his minority, as much as
made her fortune (with her own accumulated at compound interest) no less
than L4000, the ordinary marriage portion of the daughters of Hazeldean.
On her coming of age, he transferred this sum to her absolute disposal,
in order that she might feel herself independent, see a little more of
the world than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to choose from
if she deigned to marry; or enough to live upon, if she chose to remain
single. Miss Jemima had somewhat availed herself of this liberty, by
occasional visits to Cheltenham and other watering-places. But her
grateful affection to the squire was such that she could never bear to
be long away from the Hall. And this was the more praise to her heart,
inasmuch as she was far from taking kindly to the prospect of being
an old maid; and there were so few bachelors in the neighbourhood of
Hazeldean, that she could not but have that prospect before her eyes
whenever she looked out of the Hall windows. Miss Jemima was indeed
one of the most kindly and affectionate of beings feminine; and if she
disliked the thought of single blessedness, it really was from those
innocent and womanly instincts towards the tender charities of hearth
and home, without which a lady, however otherwise estimable, is little
better than a Minerva in bronze. But, whether or not, despite her
fortune and her face, which last, though not strictly handsome, was
pleasing, and would have been positively pretty if she had laughed more
often (for when she laughed, there appeared three charming dimples,
invisible when she was grave),--whether or not, I say, it was the fault
of our insensibility or her own fastidiousness, Miss Jemima approached
her thirtieth year, and was still Miss Jemima. Now, therefore, that
beautifying laugh of hers was very rarely heard, and she had of late
become confirmed in two opinions, not at all conducive to lau