or beautiful object, whether in animate or
inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself
superior to that check THEN as I do NOW.

"It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since
I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day,
my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over
the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down
and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you
shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.

"First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter
the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe,
which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr. Seacombe,
hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps
be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one
of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.

"I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good
thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh how
like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of
my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom.
To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of
Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and
well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such
circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.

"When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me 'what I intended
to do?' I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune,
and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord
Tynedale demanded sternly, 'Whether I had thoughts of following my
father's steps and engaging in trade?' Now, I had had no thoughts of the
sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good
tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was
the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale's countenance as he pronounced
the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone--that I was
instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did
not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered
then, with haste an