nish this house, and, as
soon as you please, go back to Brompton Hall."

I hardly need observe that we took possession of our old abode with
delight, and that I have had no more applications for a change of
residence, or have again heard the phrase that we were living "out of
the world."

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

THE WAY TO BE HAPPY.

Cut your coat according to your cloth, is an old maxim and a wise one;
and if people will only square their ideas according to their
circumstances, how much happier might we all be! If we only would come
down a peg or two in our notions, in accordance with our waning
fortunes, happiness would be always within our reach. It is not what we
have, or what we have not, which adds or subtracts from our felicity.
It is the longing for more than we have, the envying of those who
possess that more, and the wish to appear in the world of more
consequence than we really are, which destroy our peace of mind, and
eventually lead to ruin.

I never witnessed a man submitting to circumstances with good humour and
good sense, so remarkably as in my friend Alexander Willemott. When I
first met him, since our school days, it was at the close of the war: he
had been a large contractor with Government for army clothing and
accoutrements, and was said to have realised an immense fortune,
although his accounts were not yet settled. Indeed it was said that
they were so vast, that it would employ the time of six clerks, for two
years, to examine them, previous to the balance sheet being struck. As
I observed, he had been at school with me, and, on my return from the
East Indies, I called upon him to renew our old acquaintance, and
congratulate him upon his success.

"My dear Reynolds, I am delighted to see you. You must come down to
Belem Castle; Mrs Willemott will receive you with pleasure, I'm sure.
You shall see my two girls."

I consented. The chaise stopped at a splendid mansion, and I was
ushered in by a crowd of liveried servants. Every thing was on the most
sumptuous and magnificent scale. Having paid my respects to the lady of
the house, I retired to dress, as dinner was nearly ready, it being then
half-past seven o'clock. It was eight before we sat down. To an
observation that I made, expressing a hope that I had not occasioned the
dinner being put off, Willemott replied, "On the contrary, my dear
Reynolds, we never sit down until about this hour. How people can dine
at four or five