It met with her and Anna's concurrence, who only hoped a situation might be found not very distant from them; and, agreeable to her wishes, Mr. Campbell soon heard of a medical man in very good practice at L—, who was desirous of taking a partner who was a few years younger than himself.
Eastwood readily accepted the proposal; the money which he was to advance was agreed on, and this was all he would accept from his brother (who was made acquainted by letter of all that had passed), as his share of their father's property; intending, if he was successful in his new undertaking, to repay it him, as a small return for his kindness in receiving and supporting him during his illness.
Till this was settled, Mrs. Meridith's house was his home; and Anna had frequent opportunities of observing that her father possessed both talents and genius, which not even the wretched way in which he had spent great part of his life could obliterate. He, had received a liberal education, both from the wish of his parents to give their children that which themselves had felt the want of, and the favour of his instructor, who admired his abilities, and hoped that they would have led him to greater things than his father intended. But, notwithstanding these advantages, Eastwood had to begin the world when between forty and fifty years old; because he did not properly value them at the first. The praises his abilities obtained, gave him a high opinion of himself, but this did not keep him from the most odious vices; he suffered his inclination to shine in company, and to appear greater than he really was: till finding that he was not so highly thought of by others as by himself, he sunk into the opposite extreme, and had it not been for the reflections occasioned by a severe illness, and the subsequent occurrences, he would have remained a disgrace instead of a benefit to society, and among the lowest and vilest of his fellow creatures, instead of filling the place for which his education had fitted him.
In the evening before he left Rosewood to go to his new situation, Mrs. Meridith put an hundred pound note into Anna's hands. "I need not tell you what to do with it, my child," said she; "I hope it will be well bestowed, and we shall then have the pleasure of seeing a fellow creature restored to society."
Anna in trembling accents thanked her kind benefactress, and hastened to present it to her father as Mrs. Meridith's gift.
"I want words to thank her," said he, "but it is too much: do you think I dare be trusted with such a sum?"
"I hope so, my father," replied Anna, "and double that, had I it to give you."
"Oh! my child, money is not what I want," said he; "do you think I am now entering on business with a view to obtain it? No: but from a wish of employment, and of being useful to my fellow creatures. Every thing else is useless to me now you are provided for; and oh! my Anna, how amply! What a friend have you found in Mrs. Meridith! May you and I be ever grateful to her."
In the course of the next year, Anna, with her father and their kind friend Mrs. Meridith, visited Hull, and were introduced to her uncle, whom they found what the former had described, an industrious and benevolent man, plain in his manners, but an honour to the station he filled: and on their return to Rosewood, Mrs. Meridith celebrated Anna's coming of age with all the festivity incident to the occasion.