“Precisely; and a girl proud of her connections with both,” rejoined Grace, with strong affection.
“I wish I knew one thing, Grace; and I think I ought to know it, too.”
“If you can make the last appear, Miles, you may rest assured you shall know it, if it depend on me.”
“Did any of these gentry—these soft-handed fellows—ever think of offering to you?”
Grace laughed, and she coloured so deeply—oh! how heavenly was her beauty, with that roseate tint on her cheek!—but she coloured so deeply, that I felt satisfied that she, too, had refused her suitors. The thought appeased some of my bitter feelings, and I had a sort of semi-savage pleasure in believing that a daughter of Clawbonny was not to be had for the asking, by one of that set. The only answers I got were these disclosures by blushes.
“What are the fortune and position of this Mr. Drewett, since you are resolved to tell me nothing of your own affairs?”
“Both are good, and such as no young lady can object to. He is even said to be rich.”
“Thank God! He then is not seeking Lucy in the hope of getting some of Mrs. Bradfort's money?”
“Not in the least. It is so easy to love Lucy, for Lucy's sake, that even a fortune-hunter would be in danger of being caught in his own trap. But Mr. Drewett is above the necessity of practising so vile a scheme for making money.”
Here, that the present generation may not be misled, and imagine fortune-hunting has come in altogether within the last twenty years, I will add that it was not exactly a trade, in this country—a regular occupation—in 1802, as it has become, in 1844. There were such things then, certainly, as men, or women, who were ready to marry anybody who would make them rich; but I do not think theirs was a calling to which either sex served regular apprenticeships, as is practised to-day. Still, the business was carried on, to speak in the vernacular, and sometimes with marked success.