nd also of giving such advice to Alice, which was now
a full grown young woman, and very fair to look on, in respect of the
young cavaliers she might see at the great house, particularly the noble
lord, the Lord Lessingholm. Such advice I considered useless in regard
to my Waller, she being only about fourteen years of age, but in other
respects a fair and womanly creature to see; for her waist was nearly
twice as large as Alice Snowton's, and her shoulders also, and in weight
she would have been greatly an overmatch; and certes, putting aside all
parental fondness, which we know to be such a beautifier of one's own
kindred as to make the crow a more lovely animal than the dove, (in the
eyes of the parent crow,) I will confess that in my estimation, and also
in that of my excellent wife, there was no comparison between the two
fair maidens, either in respect of fulness of growth or redness of
complexion, the advantage being, in both these respects, on the side of
the junior. Some sentiment of this sort I saw at the time must have
possessed the honourable breast of the Viscount Lessingholm; for
although he made much profession of visiting at the parsonage for the
sake of seeing his juvenile brother, still there were certain looks and
tokens whereby I was clearly persuaded that the magnet was of a
different kind; and whereas it would have been vain and ambitious in me
to lift my eyes so high, in view of matrimonial proposals, as to nearly
the topmost branch in the peerage of England, (the Earls Fitzoswald
being known to have been barons of renown at the period of the Norman
Conquest;) still it would ill have become me to prevent my daughter from
gathering golden apples if they fell at her feet, because they had grown
on such a lofty bough of the tree; and I will therefore confess, that it
was with no little gratification I saw the unfoldings of a pure and
virtuous disposition in the honourable young nobleman. And I will
further state, that it seemed as if his presence when he came, (and that
was often, nay, sometimes twice in one day,) did make holiday in the
whole house; and Charles was by no means backward in his
friendship--receiving the fishing-rods presented unto him by the right
honourable with so winning an eagerness, and pressing Alice (his
constant friend) to go with him and the noble donor with so much zeal to
the brook, therein to try the virtues of the gift, that I found it
impossible to refuse permission; and t