not have fallen into the hands of any more disposed to make a religious and proper use of it. He endeavoured to calm his mind, and to silence those ideas, which arose in spite of him, as to whether in honour he could accept this money of his past servant. Alas! thought he, high or low, are we not all brethren under one common Father, and in the sight of heaven who may stand superior to Robert?
Having no love of riches, and having become content with his solitude, the utmost poverty or affliction to which he could possibly have been reduced would have been esteemed light and easy to bear, rather than have raised himself from such condition at the expense of any individual whatever. Munificent as he was in his own disposition in the conferring of favours, his acceptance, under the circumstances we have described, of the fortune bestowed by Robert, he found upon reasoning with himself to be perfectly consistent with the most scrupulous principles of uprightness and probity: as he could not reproach himself in this instance, so neither did he indulge in an elation of mind on the occasion.
He dined at the Ardens', rejoiced at being with his child, but found in himself no disposition to make known his new acquisition. In seeking to dispel the affecting impressions prevailing over him, if, after intervals of slight abstraction, he seemed more than usually gay, Mr. and Mrs. Arden concluded it proceeded from the pleasure he felt in being put again in the possession of his daughter, as they well
