Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/315

 were in the country only by chance. Still every one spoke of the great advantage and happiness of her being honoured with the friendship of so fine a lady as Mrs Flinders; for, excepting my father, I do not know a person in the country, that makes such a distinction between being genteel, and being respectable, as would lead them to decline for their children an introduction to whatever was beyond their station. I confess, I thought my father's objections the effects of prejudice; and entertained a hope, that Bell would make a conquest of some man of fortune. With this view, I rejoiced in the prospect of her being seen to such advantage at the races. I did 'not know that Captain Mollins was to be of the party; for though he was much at ]fount Flinders, his acquaintance with the family was so merely accidental, that it did not warrant his being treated as an intimate.

You will find by my sister's letters how much she was intoxicated by the gay and