You are but twenty-one,
and if such a period of probation was, in the Doctor's
prudence, judged necessary for me, who am
fall two years older, I have no idea that he will
dispense with it in yours.''
``Perhaps not,'' replied Middlemas; ``but do
you not think that these two, or call them three,
years of probation, had better be spent in India,
where much may be done in a little while, than
here, where nothing can be done save just enough
to get salt to our broth, or broth to our salt?
Methinks I have a natural turn for India, and so
I ought. My father was a soldier, by the conjecture
of all who saw him, and gave me a love of
the sword, and an arm to use one. My mother's
father was a rich trafficker, who loved wealth, I
warrant me, and knew how to get it. This petty
two hundred a-year, with its miserable and precarious
possibilities, to be shared with the old
gentleman, sounds in the ears of one like me, who
have the world for the winning, and a sword to
cut my way through it, like something little better
than a decent kind of beggary. Menie is in herself
a gem---a diamond---I admit it. But then,
one would not set such a precious jewel in lead or
copper, but in pure gold; ay, and add a circlet of
brilliants to set it off with.
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