0,000 dollars.
With that rapid decision which had ever marked his movements, the young
Englishman determined to purchase land in the neighborhood of Mr.
Grahame, there to rear his future hope, and to devote his life to the
like noble purposes. The land was purchased, the site for the house was
selected and marked out--but the house was never built--for ere that had
been accomplished Horace Danforth discovered that the companionship of a
cultivated woman was essential to his views of "Life in America," and
that Mary Grahame was exactly the embodiment of that youthful vision
which he had sought in vain elsewhere; for she united the delicacy and
refined grace, with the intelligent mind, the active affections and
energetic will, which were necessary at once to please his fancy and
satisfy his heart Mary Grahame could not consent to leave her father to
a lonely home, but yet she could not deny that it would be a sad home to
her if deprived of the society of him whose intelligent and varied
converse and manly tenderness had lately formed the chief charm of her
existence. There was only one way of reconciling these conflicting
claims. Horace Danforth must live with Mr. Grahame; and so he did,
having first obtained that gentleman's permission to enlarge his house,
and to furnish it with some of those inventions by which art has so
greatly lightened domestic occupation, and which had been made familiar
to him by his life abroad.

Six months had been spent in this abode--six months of an existence of
joy and love, untroubled as it could be to those who were yet dwellers
upon earth--six months in which the fastidious and world-wearied man
learned the secret of true peace in a life devoted to useful and
benevolent objects--when a most unexpected visitor arrived in the person
of Sir Edward Maitland--no, not Sir Edward. He came to announce that to
this title he had no right. That he had remained himself, and suffered
his cousin to remain so long in ignorance on this point, had been the
result of no want of effort to arrive at the truth, still less of any
lingering love of the honors forced upon him. He had never assumed the
title, nor suffered the secret of his supposed change of circumstances
to be known beyond himself and the lawyer to whom his cousin Horace had
revealed it. This lawyer, it may be remembered, had lately succeeded in
the care of the Maitland estate to an uncle, who had been compelled by
the infirmities of advancing