To be a good
listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to
effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling
well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and
the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place of
much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house and
farmlands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her without
questioning her commands.
Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he
had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system
of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he
had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If
he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly,
in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life
between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl
might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after
he had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner,
as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and
agreeable to lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and raise
children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and
disagreeable, so much the worse for those that made it so. Like many
other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue
were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there
might be contingencies in which the property would be better without
its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the
light of all its possible solutions.
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