CHAPTER III.

OPINIONS OF OUR AUTHOR'S ANCESTOR, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF HIS OWN,
AND SOME OF OTHER PEOPLE'S.


Dr. Etherington was both a pious man and a gentleman. The second son
of a baronet of ancient lineage, he had been educated in most of the
opinions of his caste, and possibly he was not entirely above its
prejudices; but, this much admitted, few divines were more willing
to defer to the ethics and principles of the Bible than himself. His
humility had, of course, a decent regard to station; his charity was
judiciously regulated by the articles of faith; and his philanthropy
was of the discriminating character that became a warm supporter of
church and state.

In accepting the trust which he was now obliged to assume, he had
yielded purely to a benevolent wish to smooth the dying pillow of my
mother. Acquainted with the character of her husband, he had
committed a sort of pious fraud, in attaching the condition of the
endowment to his consent; for, notwithstanding the becoming language
of his own rebuke, the promise, and all the other little attendant
circumstances of the night, it might be questioned which felt the
most surprise after the draft was presented and duly honored, he who
found himself in possession, or he who found himself deprived, of
the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling. Still Dr. Etherington acted
with the most scrupulous integrity in the whole affair; and although
I am aware that a writer who has so many wonders to relate, as must