, and will operate much more in favour
of an ardent and artful lover, than against him.

I still expressed my willingness to try my fortune with her.

Well, said he, I anticipated your consent to my proposal, and the visit
I have just made was to her. I thought it best to pave the way, by
informing her that I had met with one for whom she had desired me to
look out. You must know that her father was one of these singular men
who set a value upon things exactly in proportion to the difficulty of
obtaining or comprehending them. His passion was for antiques, and his
favourite pursuit during a long life was monuments in brass, marble, and
parchment, of the remotest antiquity. He was wholly indifferent to the
character or conduct of our present sovereign and his ministers, but was
extremely solicitous about the name and exploits of a king of Ireland
that lived two or three centuries before the flood. He felt no curiosity
to know who was the father of his wife's child, but would travel a
thousand miles, and consume months, in investigating which son of
Noah it was that first landed on the coast of Munster. He would give
a hundred guineas from the mint for a piece of old decayed copper no
bigger than his nail, provided it had aukward characters upon it, too
much defaced to be read. The whole stock of a great bookseller was, in
his eyes, a cheap exchange for a shred of parchment, containing half a
homily written by St. Patrick. He would have gratefully given all his
patrimonial domains to one who should inform him what pendragon or druid
it was who set up the first stone on Salisbury plain.

This spirit, as you may readily suppose, being seconded by great wealth
and long life, contributed to form a very large collection of venerable
lumber, which, though beyond all price to the collector himself, is of
no value to his heiress but so far as it is marketable. She designs
to bring the whole to auction, but for this purpose a catalogue and
description are necessary. Her father trusted to a faithful memory, and
to vague and scarcely legible memorandums, and has left a very arduous
task to any one who shall be named to the office. It occurred to me,
that the best means of promoting your views was to recommend you to this
office.

You are not entirely without the antiquarian frenzy yourself. The
employment, therefore, will be somewhat agreeable to you for its own
sake. It will entitle you to become an inmate of the same house, and