Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete

								

life he had been something of a "tuft-hunter;" but as his understanding
was good and his passions not very strong, he had soon perceived that
that vessel of clay, a young man with a moderate fortune, cannot long
sail down the same stream with the metal vessels of rich earls and
extravagant dandies. Besides, he was destined for the Church--because
there was one of the finest livings in England in the family. He
therefore took orders at six and twenty; married Mrs. Leslie's daughter,
who had thirty thousand pounds: and settled at the rectory of Merton,
within a mile of the family seat. He became a very respectable and
extremely popular man. He was singularly hospitable, and built a new
wing--containing a large dining-room and six capital bed-rooms--to the
rectory, which had now much more the appearance of a country villa
than a country parsonage. His brother, succeeding to the estates, and
residing chiefly in the neighbourhood, became, like his father before
him, member for the county, and was one of the country gentlemen most
looked up to in the House of Commons. A sensible and frequent, though
uncommonly prosy speaker, singularly independent (for he had a clear
fourteen thousand pounds a year, and did not desire office), and valuing
himself on not being a party man, so that his vote on critical questions
was often a matter of great doubt, and, therefore, of great moment, Sir
John Merton gave considerable importance to the Rev. Charles Merton. The
latter kept up all the more select of his old London acquaintances; and
few country houses, at certain seasons of the year, were filled more
aristocratically than the pleasant rectory-house. Mr. Merton,
indeed, contrived to make the Hall a reservoir for the parsonage, and
periodically drafted off the elite of the visitors at the former to
spend a few days at the latter. This was the more easily done, as his
brother was a widower, and his conversation was all of one sort,--the
state of the nation and the agricultural interest. Mr. Merton was upon
very friendly terms with his brother, looked after the property in
the absence of Sir John, kept up the family interest, was an excellent
electioneerer, a good speaker at a pinch, an able magistrate,--a man, in
short, most useful in the county; on the whole, he was more popular than
his brother, and almost as much looked up to--perhaps, because he was
much less ostentatious. He had very good taste, had the Rev. Charles
Merton!--his table plentiful, but plain--his manners affable to the low,
though agreeably sycophantic to the high; and there was nothing about
him that ever wounded self-love. To add to the attractions of his house,
his wife, simple and good-tempered, could talk with anybody, take off
the bores, and leave people to be comfortable in their own way: while
he had a large family of fine children of all ages, that had long given
easy and constant excuse under the name of "little children's parties,"