It follows that if I would wear a cap and bells, I must have a cap made on purpose. But this would be rendering myself singular; and of all things a wise man will most avoid any ostentatious appearance of singularity.
Now I am certainly not singular in playing the fool without one.
And indeed if I possessed such a cap, it would not be proper to wear it in this part of my history.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
RASH MARRIAGES. AN EARLY WIDOWHOOD. AFFLICTION RENDERED A BLESSING TO THE SUFFERER; AND TWO ORPHANS LEFT, THOUGH NOT DESTITUTE, YET FRIENDLESS.
Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame;
Whereas they were supported by the same.
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
HERBERT.
Mrs. Dove was the only child of a clergyman who held a small vicarage in the West Riding. Leonard Bacon her father had been left an orphan in early youth. He had some wealthy relations by whose contributions he was placed at an endowed grammar school in the country, and having through their influence gained a scholarship to which his own deserts might have entitled him, they continued to assist him—sparingly enough indeed—at the University, till he succeeded to a fellowship. Leonard was made of Nature's finest clay, and Nature had tempered it with the choicest dews of Heaven.