I was soon sagacious enough to discover that I
was not born to great wealth; and having heard no
other name for happiness, was sometimes inclined
to repine at my condition. But my mother always
relieved me, by saying, that there was money enough
in the family, that IT WAS GOOD TO BE OF KIN TO MEANS,
that I had nothing to do but to please my friends,
and I might come to hold up my head with the
best squire in the country.
These splendid expectations arose from our
alliance to three persons of considerable fortune. My
mother's aunt had attended on a lady, who, when
she died, rewarded her officiousness and fidelity
with a large legacy. My father had two relations,
of whom one had broken his indentures and run to
sea, from whence, after an absence of thirty years,
he returned with ten thousand pounds; and the
other had lured an heiress out of a window, who,
dying of her first child, had left him her estate, on
which he lived, without any other care than to
collect his rents, and preserve from poachers that
game which he could not kill himself.
These hoarders of money were visited and courted
by all who had any pretence to approach them, and
received presents and compliments from cousins
who could scarcely tell the degree of their relation.
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