gentlemanlike passion; but avarice and ambition are certainly the two
most ungentlemanlike propensities in human nature."

"Not ambition, surely," exclaimed Wilton.

"The worst of all!" cried his friend--"the worst of all! Avarice is
a gentleman to ambition! Avarice is merely a tinker, a dealer in old
metal; but ambition is a chimney-sweep of a passion: a mere
climbing-boy, who will go through any dirty hole in all Christendom
only to get out at the top of the chimney. But you have not guessed,
Wilton--you have not guessed. To it; and tell me, what is the absurd
thing my father proposes to do?"

Wilton shook his head, and said that he could in no way divine.

"To marry me, Wilton--to marry me to a lady rich and fair," replied
the young lord: "what think you of that, Wilton?--you who know me,
what think you of that?"

"Why, if I must really say the truth," replied Wilton, "I think the
Earl has very naturally considered your happiness before that of the
lady."

"As well gilded a sarcasm that," replied Lord Sherbrooke, "as if it
had come from my father's own lips. However, what you say is very
true: the poor unfortunate girl little knows what the slave merchants
are devising for her. My father has dealt with hers, and her father
has dealt with mine, and settled all affairs between them, it seems,
without our knowledge or participation in any shape. I was the first
of the two parties concerned who received the word of command to march