t in not taking a lease for more
than three years."

"Yes: how lucky you were so positive!"

"Well, then, if that is the case, we will unfurnish this house, and, as
soon as you please, go back to Brompton Hall."

I hardly need observe that we took possession of our old abode with
delight, and that I have had no more applications for a change of
residence, or have again heard the phrase that we were living "out of
the world."

The Way to be Happy

Cut your coat according to your cloth, is an old maxim and a wise one;
and if people will only square their ideas according to their
circumstances, how much happier might we all be! If we only would come
down a peg or two in our notions, in accordance with our waning
fortunes, happiness would be always within our reach. It is not what we
have, or what we have not, which adds or subtracts from our felicity. It
is the longing for more than we have, the envying of those who possess
that more, and the wish to appear in the world of more consequence than
we really are, which destroy our peace of mind, and eventually lead to
ruin.

I never witnessed a man submitting to circumstances with good humour and
good sense, so remarkably as in my friend Alexander Willemott. When I
first met him, since our school days, it was at the close of the war: he
had been a large contractor with government for army clothing and
accoutrements, and was said to have realised an immense fortune,
although his accounts were not yet settled. Indeed, it was said that
they were so vast, that it would employ the time of six clerks for two
years, to examine them, previous to the balance sheet being struck. As I
observed, he had been at school with me, and, on my return from the East
Indies, I called upon him to renew our old acquaintance, and
congratulate him upon his success.

"My dear Reynolds, I am delighted to see you. You must come down to
Belem Castle; Mrs Willemott will receive you with pleasure, I'm sure.
You shall see my two girls."

I consented. The chaise stopped at a splendid mansion, and I was ushered
in by a crowd of liveried servants. Everything was on the most sumptuous
and magnificent scale. Having paid my respects to the lady of the house,
I retired to dress, as dinner was nearly ready, it being then half-past
seven o'clock. It was eight before we sat down. To an observation that I
made, expressing a hope that I had not occasioned the dinner being put
off, Willemott replied, "O