If he could be true to himself--with such truth as at
these moments would seem to him to be the truest truth--there was nothing
in rank, nothing in ambition, which might not be within his reach. He
might live with the highest, and best-educated, and the most beautiful; he
might assist in directing national councils by his intelligence; and might
make a name for himself which should be remembered in his country, and of
which men would read the records in the histories written in after ages.
But to do this he must walk warily. He, an embarrassed man, a man already
in debt, a man with no realised property coming to him in reversion, was
called upon to live, and to live as though at his ease, among those who
had been born to wealth. And, indeed, he had so cleverly learned the ways
of the wealthy that he hardly knew any longer how to live at his ease
among the poor.
But had he walked warily when he went down to Richmond, and afterward,
sitting alone in the obscurity of his chamber, wrote the letter which had
made Lucy Morris so happy? It must be acknowledged that he did in truth
love the girl--that he was capable of a strong feeling.
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