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Rh four or five-and-twenty years since, I have heard you too often describe the scene with comic unction, to hope you will be deterred from making the purchase. I trust, however, the hospitable gossiping Laird has not run himself upon the shallows, and that his chaplain, whom you so often made us laugh at, is still in rerum natura.

"And here, dear Mannering, I wish I could stop, for I have incredible pain in telling the rest of my story, although I am sure I can warrant you against any intentional impropriety on the part of my temporary ward, Julia Mannering. But I must still earn my college nickname of 'Downright Dunstable.' In one word then, here is the matter.

"Your daughter has much of the romantic turn of your disposition, with a little of that love of admiration which all pretty women share less or more. She will besides, apparently, be your heiress; a trifling circumstance to those who view Julia with my eyes, but a prevailing bait