f blood infected by high-seasoned dishes, mixed with copious
draughts of wine--repletion of food and liquor, not less fatal to the
existence of the rich than the want of common sustenance to the lives of
the poor.

They told of Lady Bendham's ruin, since her lord's death, by gaming. They
told, "that now she suffered beyond the pain of common indigence by the
cutting triumph of those whom she had formerly despised."

They related (what has been told before) the divorce of William, and the
marriage of his wife with a libertine; the decease of Lady Clementina,
occasioned by that incorrigible vanity which even old age could not
subdue.

After numerous other examples had been recited of the dangers, the evils
that riches draw upon their owner; the elder Henry rose from his chair,
and embracing Rebecca and his son, said--"How much indebted are we to
Providence, my children, who, while it inflicts poverty, bestows peace of
mind; and in return for the trivial grief we meet in this world, holds
out to our longing hopes the reward of the next!"

Not only resigned, but happy in their station, with hearts made cheerful
rather than dejected by attentive meditation, Henry and his son planned
the means of their future support, independent of their kinsman
William--nor only of him, but of every person and thing but their own
industry.

"While I have health and strength," cried the old man, and his son's
looks acquiesced in all the father said, "I will not take from any one in
affluence what only belongs to the widow, the fatherless, and the infirm;
for to such alone, by Christian laws--however custom may subvert them--the
overplus of the rich is due."

CHAPTER XLVII.

By forming a humble scheme for their remaining life, a scheme depending
upon their _own_ exertions alone, on no light promises of pretended
friends, and on no sanguine hopes of certain success, but with prudent
apprehension, with fortitude against disappointment, Henry, his son, and
Rebecca (now his daughter), found themselves, at the end of one year, in
the enjoyment of every comfort with such distinguished minds knew how to
taste.

Exempt both from patronage and from control--healthy--alive to every
fruition with which Nature blesses the world; dead to all out of their
power to attain, the works of art--susceptible of those passions with
endear human creatures one to another, insensible to those which separate
man from man--they found themselves the t