d had a brief; his daughters had been twenty years on
the world, and never had had an offer; but he still expected to see
Richard lord chancellor, and his three girls peeresses. A country
gentleman, a county magistrate, perfectly healthy and tolerably rich,
was there any thing wanting to Mr Wilkins's felicity? Yes. Alexander
the Great was wretched when he had conquered the world, and was ten
times happier when he was breaking-in Bucephalus; and Mr Wilkins, if
the truth must be told, was very like Alexander the Great, at least in
his discontent, and was never so gay as he used to be in the dingy
mansion in Riches Court. The dinners he gave were formal, cold
affairs, where he never felt at his ease: he could not help thinking
that the neighbours quizzed and looked down on him; and, in short, he
felt out of his element, and longed sometimes for the free-and-easy
dinners he had relished so much in the city. His farm-houses were at
last all built, his improvements all completed, and there was no
further occupation for either himself or his money. He sometimes drove
into Harley Street to see his son, but he found that gentleman also on
the rack of idleness, and went home again, wondering how Roe was
getting on in the old premises, though never venturing to go near
him--for his family had insisted on a dead cut between the partners,
and could not endure the thoughts of Mr Roe coming between the wind
and their newly acquired nobility. Time wore on. Old Wilkins grew
older. He used to sit at the window of his drawing-room and look
towards London, fancying to himself the bustle and stir that were
going on, the crowding in Fleet Street, the crush at the Bank; and
occasionally imagination conjured up to him the image of an active
citizen bustling down towards the Exchange, radiant with success, and
filled with activity and hope; and he could scarcely recognise his own
identity with that joyous citizen, the William Wilkins of that happier
time. The flood of building, which had only reached to within three
miles of Surbridge when the Walronds retired to the ark of some estate
they retained in Yorkshire, had now increased to such a degree, as to
have submerged many of the fields and orchards that lay at very short
distance from the Hall. "Willars," with Italian fronts and little
greenhouses at the side, took post all along the road, and, from the
open windows, sounded in summer evenings the Battle of Prague, or God
save the King, so tha