It may be seen
that he was of an adventurous temperament, though he had thought fit to
loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, however, had been hired for the
very special purpose of helping him to pass in review the lines of what
he called country houses, cottages, or even sites for building, not too
remote from sweet London: and as when Coelebs goes forth intending to
pursue and obtain, there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, the
circumstance that there stood a house to let, in an airy situation, at a
certain distance in hail of the metropolis he worshipped, was enough to
kindle the General's enthusiasm. He would have taken the first he saw,
had it not been for his daughter, who accompanied him, and at the age of
eighteen was about to undertake the management of his house. Fortune,
under Elizabeth Ople's guiding restraint, directed him to an epitome of
the comforts. The place he fell upon is only to be described in the
tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week after taking it he modestly
followed them by terming it bijou.
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