Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/322

314 externals to aid it than any other; still Brandon had affected to preserve parliamentary as well as legal importance; and, though his house was situated in a quarter entirely professional, he had been accustomed to assemble around his hospitable board whosoever were eminent, in his political party, for rank or for talent. Now, however, when hospitality, and a certain largeness of expenses, better became his station, he grew closer and more exact in his economy. Brandon never could have degenerated into a miser; money to one so habitually wise as he was, could never have passed from means into an object; but he had, evidently for some cause or another, formed the resolution to save. Some said it was the result of returning health, and the hope of a prolonged life, to which many objects, for which wealth is desirable, might occur. But when it was accidentally ascertained that Brandon had been making several inquiries respecting a large estate in the neighbourhood of Warlock, formerly in the possession of his family, the gossips—(for Brandon was a man to be gossiped about,)—were no longer in want of a motive false or real, for the Judge's thrift.