unate
woman, particularly if she is not required to go to India, but can have
a good position at home.

So when a young man, not more than thirty-four, rather handsome, of
good character, and apparently good temper, intelligent and agreeable,
who went to church the first Sunday after he came to Cross Hall, and
who was the legitimate heir to the old family of Hogarth, came to
settle in the county as a neighbour, his having been clerk in a bank
for eighteen years was not looked on as a drawback. He was all the more
likely to take good care of his money now he had got it; and calls and
invitations came from every quarter. Mr. and Mrs. Rennie, who had had
visions of his being exactly the person to suit their Eliza, had a
month's start of the country neighbours; but they feared the result of
his being thrown among such families as the Chalmerses, the Maxwells,
the Crichtons, and the Jardines. He had asked the Rennies to pay him a
visit at Cross Hall in the autumn, when they always took a run to the
country or to the seaside, and had accompanied his invitation with a
request, that if his cousins came to Edinburgh, the Rennies would show
them some kindness and attention, which they readily promised to do.

If Mrs. Rennie had known his secret feelings towards the country
families, she might have set her mind at rest as to their rivalry; but
Francis was very reserved, and his training had not led him to place
confidence in any one, till his heart had recently opened to his cousin
Jane. He received the visits of his new neighbours civilly, and
accepted their invitations; but the conduct of these people towards the
disinherited girls made him secretly repel their advances towards his
prosperous self. It appeared to show such barefaced worldliness and
selfishness, that he shrank from the most insinuating speeches and the
most flattering attentions.

He did not know how much of the coldness of Jane and Elsie's old
neighbours proceeded from the dislike and suspicion with which Mr.
Hogarth's religious opinions, or rather his religious scepticism, was
regarded in a particularly orthodox district. They had exchanged formal
visits, and had invited each other to large parties, because not to do
so would have been unneighbourly; but with none of the people about
Swinton had there ever been any familiar intimacy. Jane and Elsie were
supposed to be deeply tinged with their uncle's heresies, and they were
such very strange girls, having be