Now, in these arrangements (for we must here go back a little), there
had been one gigantic difficulty of conscience in one party, of feeling
in another, to surmount. Mrs. Leslie saw at once that unless Alice's
misfortune was concealed, all the virtues and all the talents in the
world could not enable her to retrace the one false step. Mrs. Leslie
was a woman of habitual truth and strict rectitude, and she was sorely
perplexed between the propriety of candour and its cruelty. She felt
unequal to take the responsibility of action on herself; and, after much
meditation, she resolved to confide her scruples to one who, of all whom
she knew, possessed the highest character for moral worth and religious
sanctity. This gentleman, lately a widower, lived at the outskirts of
the town selected for Alice's future residence, and at that time
happened to be on a visit in Mrs. Leslie's neighbourhood. He was an
opulent man, a banker; he had once represented the town in parliament,
and retiring, from disinclination to the late hours and onerous fatigues
even of an unreformed House of Commons, he still possessed an influence
to return one, if not both, of the members for the city of C------. And
that influence was always exerted so as best to secure his own interest
with the powers that be, and advance certain objects of ambition (for he
was both an ostentatious and ambitious man in his own way), which he
felt he might more easily obtain by proxy than by his own votes and
voice in parliament--an atmosphere in which his light did not shine.
And it was with a wonderful address that the banker contrived at once to
support the government, and yet, by the frequent expression of liberal
opinions, to conciliate the Whigs and the Dissenters of his
neighbourhood. Parties, political and sectarian, were not then so
irreconcilable as they are now. In the whole county there was no one so
respected as this eminent person, and yet he possessed no shining
talents, though a laborious and energetic man of business. It was
solely and wholly the force of moral character which gave him his