8/21 You'll come ?" Mr.Barrett bowed, murmuring thanks. This was the very man Mr.Pole wanted to have at his board occasionally: one who had known great people, and would be thankful for a dinner. He could depreciate himself as a mere wealthy British merchant imposingly before such a man. His daughters had completely cut him off from his cronies; and the sense of restriction, and compression, and that his own house was fast becoming alien territory to him, made him pounce upon the gentlemanly organist. But the worthy merchant's consciousness of his identity was vanishing under the iron social rule of the ladies. |