You are the
better match, in all worldly respects, for his daughter,
having some capital to begin the world with.''
``All true---but methinks Mr Gray has showed
no great predilection for me in this matter.''
``If he has done injustice to your indisputable
merit,'' said Hartley drily, ``the preference of his
daughter has more than atoned for it.''
``Unquestionably; and dearly, therefore, do I
love her; otherwise, Adam, I am not a person to
grasp at the leavings of other people.''
``Richard,'' replied Hartley, `` that pride of yours,
if you do not check it, will render you both ungrateful
and miserable. Mr Gray's ideas are most
friendly. He told me plainly, that his choice of me
as an assistant, and as a member of his family, had
been a long time balanced by his early affection for
you, until he thought he had remarked in you a
decisive discontent with such limited prospects as
his offer contained, and a desire to go abroad into
the world, and push, as it is called, your fortune.
He said, that although it was very probable that
you might love his daughter well enough to relinquish
these ambitious ideas for her sake, yet the
demons of Ambition and Avarice would return
after the exorciser Love had exhausted the force
of his spells, and then he thought he would have
just reason to be anxious for his daughter's happiness.
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