likewise. He began to spy about for Mr. Roller, and it sometimes
occurred that they conversed across the wall; it could hardly be avoided.
A hint or two, an undefinable flying allusion, gave the General to
understand that Lady Camper had not been happy in her marriage. He was
pained to think of her misfortune; but as she was not over forty, the
disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that is to say, if she could be
taught to extend her forgiveness to men, and abandon her solitude. 'If,'
he said to his daughter, 'Lady Camper should by any chance be induced to
contract a second alliance, she would, one might expect, be humanized,
and we should have highly agreeable neighbours.' Elizabeth artlessly
hoped for such an event to take place.

She rarely differed with her father, up to whom, taking example from the
world around him, she looked as the pattern of a man of wise conduct.

And he was one; and though modest, he was in good humour with himself,
approved himself, and could say, that without boasting of success, he was
a satisfied man, until he met his touchstone in Lady Camper.




CHAPTER II

This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out,
because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so cruel in
it, for he was no brilliant son of fortune, he was no great pretender,
none of those who are logically displaced from the heights they have been
raised to, manifestly created to show the moral in Providence. He was
modest, retiring, humbly contented; a gentlemanly residence appeased his