ning at home to enjoy the society of his daughters.

As for Frank, he was equally well pleased to let matters be as they
were; he shot with the squire, accompanied him on his walks about his
farm; and occasionally, when the weather permitted, attended the young
ladies in their rides; and then, and then only, did Vernon envy him, or
repine at his own lame and helpless condition. But whatever the opinion
of the latter might have been, never in all his born days did Mr Frank
Trevelyan spend his time so much to his satisfaction.

Now we must not suppose that Squire Potts had, like an old blockhead,
admitted these two young men into such close terms of intimacy with his
family, upon no further acquaintance than was furnished him by his
having helped the one out of a lead shaft, and the other to a dry
rig-out after the duckings he had encountered in seeking the necessary
aid--quite the contrary; for though the nature of the accident, and the
forlorn condition of our pedestrians, would have insured them both food
and shelter till the patient could have been safely removed elsewhere;
yet the squire would never have admitted any one to the society of the
female part of his family, whose respectability and station in society
he was at all doubtful about. He had therefore, during supper-time on
the night of his arrival, but in polite manner, put several pumping
questions to Frank, who very readily answered them; from which he
discovered that Frank's father, though personally unacquainted with, he
knew by reputation to be a highly respectable person and a county
magistrate; nor was even Frank's name wholly unknown to him, and the
little he had heard was highly in his favour. He, therefore, passed
muster very well; and, during the course of the shooting expedition on
the following morning, the squire had also contrived to elicit from his
young companion, that Vernon Wycherley's father, who had died some years
before, had been both an intimate and valued friend of his own early
years.

By this means a great portion of the reserve, often attendant upon an
acquaintance recently formed, wore off; so that our two heroes felt
themselves, in the course of a few days, as much at home with their
newly-made friends, as if they had been on terms of intimacy with them
from their childhood. There was, however, one serious drawback to the
poet's felicity. The comedy upon which he had designed to establish his
future fame, was nowhere to be foun