But Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly; he had the provident
instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had passed from him, and carried
off much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was fast coming
when a home, with a partner who could help to maintain it, would be
conducive to his comforts, and an occasional hum-drum evening by the
fireside beneficial to his health. In the midst of one season at
Brighton, to which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales, he
saw a widow, who, though in the weeds of mourning, did not appear
inconsolable. Her person pleased his taste; the accounts of her jointure
satisfied his understanding; he contrived an introduction, and brought a
brief wooing to a happy close. The late Mr. Hazeldean had so far
anticipated the chance of the young widow's second espousals, that, in
case of that event, he transferred, by his testamentary dispositions, the
guardianship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires whom he
had named his executors. This circumstance combined with her new ties
somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from the pledge of her former loves;
and when she had borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child
that her maternal affections gradually concentrated.

William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large provincial
academy, at which his forefathers had received their education time out
of mind. At first he spent his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she
now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to
partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion, so as he grew older, William,
who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners
and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was
openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations
either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small
college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth century by some ancestral
Hazeldean; and left it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A few