Mademoiselle, who promised she would endeavour to bring her young charge
into the field again the next evening.




CHAPTER II.

DOMESTIC CONCERNS.

MR. Temple was the youngest son of a nobleman whose fortune was by no
means adequate to the antiquity, grandeur, and I may add, pride of the
family. He saw his elder brother made completely wretched by marrying a
disagreeable woman, whose fortune helped to prop the sinking dignity
of the house; and he beheld his sisters legally prostituted to old,
decrepid men, whose titles gave them consequence in the eyes of the
world, and whose affluence rendered them splendidly miserable. "I will
not sacrifice internal happiness for outward shew," said he: "I will
seek Content; and, if I find her in a cottage, will embrace her with as
much cordiality as I should if seated on a throne."

Mr. Temple possessed a small estate of about five hundred pounds a year;
and with that he resolved to preserve independence, to marry where the
feelings of his heart should direct him, and to confine his expenses
within the limits of his income. He had a heart open to every generous
feeling of humanity, and a hand ready to dispense to those who wanted
part of the blessings he enjoyed himself.

As he was universally known to be the friend of the unfortunate, his
advice and bounty was frequently solicited; nor was it seldom that he