y Camper should by any
chance be induced to contract a second alliance, she would, one might
expect, be humanized, and we should have highly agreeable neighbours.'
Elizabeth artlessly hoped for such an event to take place.

She rarely differed with her father, up to whom, taking example from the
world around him, she looked as the pattern of a man of wise conduct.

And he was one; and though modest, he was in good humour with himself,
approved himself, and could say, that without boasting of success, he
was a satisfied man, until he met his touchstone in Lady Camper.

CHAPTER II

This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out,
because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so
cruel in it, for he was no brilliant son of fortune, he was no great
pretender, none of those who are logically displaced from the heights
they have been raised to, manifestly created to show the moral in
Providence. He was modest, retiring, humbly contented; a gentlemanly
residence appeased his ambition. Popular, he could own that he was, but
not meteorically; rather by reason of his willingness to receive light
than his desire to shed it. Why, then, was the terrible test brought
to bear upon him, of all men? He was one of us; no worse, and not
strikingly or perilously better; and he could not but feel, in the
bitterness of his reflections upon an inexplicable destiny, that the
punishment befalling him, unmerited as it was, looked like absence of
Design in the scheme of things, Above. It looked as if the blow had been
dealt him by reckless chance. And to believe that, was for the mind of
General Ople the having to return to his alphabet and recommence the
ascent of the laborious mountain of understanding.

To proceed, the General's introduction to Lady Camper was owing to a
message she sent him by her gardener, with a request that he would cut
down a branch of a wychelm, obscuring her view across his grounds toward
the river. The General consulted with his daughter, and came to the
conclusion, that as he could hardly despatch a written reply to a verbal
message, yet greatly wished to subscribe to the wishes of Lady Camper,
the best thing for him to do was to apply for an interview. He sent
word that he would wait on Lady Camper immediately, and betook himself
forthwith to his toilette. She was the niece of an earl.

Elizabeth commended his appearance, 'passed him,' as he would have
said; and well s