Lord Rufford married Miss
Penge of course, and used the lady's fortune in buying the property
of Sir John Purefoy. We may probably be safe in saying that the
acquisition added very little to his happiness. What difference can
it make to a man whether he has forty or fifty thousand pounds a
year,--or at any rate to such a man? Perhaps Miss Penge herself was
an acquisition. He did not hunt so often or shoot so much, and was
seen in church once at least on every Sunday. In a very short time
his friends perceived that a very great change had come over him.
He was growing fat, and soon disliked the trouble of getting up
early to go to a distant meet; and, before a year or two had passed
away, it had become an understood thing that in country houses he
was not one of the men who went down at night into the smoking-room
in a short dressing-coat and a picturesque cap. Miss Penge had done
all this. He had had his period of pleasure, and no doubt the
change was desirable;--but he sometimes thought with regret of the
promise Arabella Trefoil had made him, that she would never
interfere with his gratification.
At Dillsborough everything during the summer after the Squire's
marriage fell back into its usual routine. The greatest change made
there was in the residence of the attorney, who with his family
went over to live at Hoppet Hall, giving up his old house to a
young man from Norrington, who had become his partner, but keeping
the old office for his business.
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