"
"If he has done injustice to your indisputable merit," said Hartley,
dryly, "the preference of his daughter has more than atoned for it."
"Unquestionably; and dearly, therefore, do I love her; otherwise, Adam,
I am not a person to grasp at the leavings of other people."
"Richard," replied Hartley, "that pride of yours, if you do not check
it, will render you both ungrateful and miserable. Mr. Gray's ideas are
most friendly. He told me plainly that his choice of me as an assistant,
and as a member of his family, had been a long time balanced by his
early affection for you, until he thought he had remarked in you a
decisive discontent with such limited prospects as his offer contained,
and a desire to go abroad into the world, and push, as it is called,
your fortune. He said, that although it was very probable that you might
love his daughter well enough to relinquish these ambitious ideas for
her sake, yet the demons of Ambition and Avarice would return after the
exorciser Love had exhausted the force of his spells, and then he
thought he would have just reason to be anxious for his daughter's
happiness."
"By my faith, the worthy senior speaks scholarly and wisely," answered
Richard--"I did not think he had been so clear-sighted. To say the
truth, but for the beautiful Menie Gray, I should feel like a
mill-horse, walking my daily round in this dull country, while other gay
rovers are trying how the world will receive them.
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