Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/272

 *stances, proposed, at the instigation of his wife, to breed Fanny to be a young lady, trusting that she would acquire, by marriage, rank and fortune; and thus enable her parents to look down upon their neighbours. With these hopes they had sent her to a boarding school, near the metropolis; there she learned to smatter a little French, to strum a little on the pianoforté, to read a little, and to speak a great deal. The lady governess of the seminary often boasted of her connections, and among these had a brother whom she used to style an officer in the guards, and indeed so he was, and a very useful officer too, and having risen from the ranks to be corporal, had afterwards become a sergeant, then sergeant major, and lastly, an adjutant. He had a son, who, inheriting his military spirit, was now a sergeant of grenadiers, one of the handsomest young