e attained his
twenty-first birthday, his majority was celebrated as that of his
uncle's heir, and as such he was presented by Sir Thomas Maitland to his
assembled tenantry. Soon after this event, the Baronet obtained for his
nephew a right to the name and arms of Maitland--a measure to which,
knowing little of his father's family, Horace readily consented. Sir
Thomas Maitland died suddenly while yet in the prime of life, and was
succeeded by Sir Horace, then twenty-four years of age. In the
enjoyments of society, of travel, and of those thousand luxuries, mental
and physical, which fortune secures, three years passed rapidly away
with the young, handsome, and accomplished Baronet.

One of the earliest convictions of Horace Maitland's life had been, that
the refining presence of woman was necessary to the perfection of
Maitland Park, and when Sir Thomas said to him, "Marry, Horace--do not
be an old bachelor like your uncle"--though he answered nothing, he
vowed in the inmost recesses of his heart that it should not be his
fault if he did not obey the injunction. Yet to the world it seemed
wholly his own fault that at twenty-seven he had not given to Maitland
Park a mistress, and even he himself could not attribute his continued
celibacy to the coldness or cruelty of woman; for, in truth, though he
had "knelt at many a shrine," he had "laid his heart on none." If hardly
pressed for his reason, he might have said with Ferdinand,--

"For several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she own'd,
And put it to the foil."

He who after the death of his uncle continued to urge Sir Horace most on
the subject of matrimony, was the one of all the world who might have
been supposed least desirous to see him enter into its bonds. This was
Edward Maitland, a distant cousin, somewhat younger than himself, to
whom he had been attached from his boyhood, and who had been saved by
his generosity from many of those painful experiences to which a very
narrow income would otherwise have subjected him. It had more than once
been suggested to Edward Maitland, that should his cousin die
unmarried, he might not unreasonably hope to become his heir, as he was
supposed to be uncontrolled by any entail in the disposal of his
property, and had few nearer relations than himself, and none with whom
he maintained such intimate an