Page:Lady Anne Granard 1.pdf/233

228 nor soured the kindliness of his temper, although the many fears of a lover had been added to his solicitude. Either the nature of his own situation, or the company that his mean brother-in-law and his flirting sister called around them, had given him a disgust for political and fashionable society (which is, in fact, very generally to be found in those who are engaged in public offices, conscious that they do the work for which others are paid), so that nothing could be more agreeable to him than the change in his situation effected by Mr. Glentworth's kindness. That gentleman had discovered that he had not only the industry which enabled him to fulfil his own duties and Lord Penrhyn's also, but talents which could be advantageously employed in a higher sphere, and was well aware that the exercise of his faculties would add to his happiness quite as much as his fortune. He was now proving the truth of these surmises: the situation which had given to his constant love the bride of his heart, was, in all its demands, accepted as a gift to be proud of, a station to glory in. What a different man was the responsible merchant—the respectable partner of a long-established house—the happy husband of a lovely, modest, and contented wife—to the young man who filled a place at table as the permitted, not invited, the unrewarded labourer for an ungrateful taskmaster—the handsome dangler, allowed to join in a quadrille, on the condition of being an automaton before and after—the listener to young members, and old women of rank—the person who