London was in my power, all it held of promise and possibility was not beyond the flight of my soaring mind.

My sisters exchanged sharp admonitions for admiring deference, and my mother feared nothing save that the great place to which I was now surely destined might impair the homely virtues which she had instilled into me.

As for the Vicar, he stroked his nose and glanced at me with an eye which spoke so plainly of Betty Nasroth that I fell to laughing heartily.
Thus, being in great danger of self-exaltation, I took the best medicine that I could--although by no means with intention--in waiting on my lord Quinton, who was then residing at the Manor.

Here my swelled spirit was smartly pricked, and sank soon to its true proportions.

I was no great man here, and although my lord received me very kindly, he had less to say on the richness of my fortune than on the faults of my manner and the rustic air of my attire.