Geoffery was still at the billiard table, where, with the assistance of Sir William Orm, he was engaged in plucking a new pigeon, no less a personage than the future head of the Salter family.

Mr. John Salter was a vain, vulgar, selfish fool; in natural clumsiness a caricature of John Bull personified, yet so determined to be French and Frenchified, and so proud of his travels to and through Boulogne, that the young men about the rooms, to whom he afforded infinite amusement, called him the Marquis. Sir William Orm, though he had long since cut the other members of the Salter family, sometimes did the young man the honour to win his money; while Geoffery Arden, and several other fashionables, granted him the privilege of a limited portion of their acquaintance on the same liberal terms. When the Misses Salter, however, saw their brother bow to one gentleman, speak to another, and walk with a third, their drooping hopes naturally revived.

"Who is that, John?—Has he much fortune—Is he married?—Couldn't you ask him to dinner some day?—And who is that? I never saw you speak to him before." Such were the questions and comments addressed by the young ladies to their hopeful brother, who never, however, took the trouble of giving them any satisfaction; his usual polite reply being, "If I choose to ask him to dinner, I won't wait for your leave you may depend upon it."

"Well," said Miss Salter to her sister, "if we get plenty of men acquaintance through John, we needn't much care about the ladies after all. It's the men we want you know."

"I know that," said Grace, "but I don't know that we shall get them: however we might have had both the ladies and the gentlemen, only for your improper conduct to Mrs. Dorothea. Isn't this Mr. Arden that John knows, her nephew; and Sir Willoughby Arden, and the other Mr. Arden both her nephews? besides, her knowing all the fine people; why she would have been the very best acquaintance in Cheltenham, if we had only kept her while we had her."

"Well, I wish you'd keep your temper I know, and not be always harping on that old story."

"Temper, indeed! The less you say on that subject the better; but for that matter I mean to take your advice and keep my temper, as it happens to be one of the best going; but I recommend you to part with yours as soon as possible, for you can't exchange it for a worse let me tell you."

Miss Salter, who had just finished washing her hands, snatched up the basin, flung its contents in her sister's face, and effecting her retreat during the first consternation of the enemy, said, as she flounced out of the room, "except I changed it for yours."

Descending in haste, she encountered her brother, Sir William Orm, and Mr. Geoffrey Arden in the entrance hall. Astonished, delighted, and covered with smiles, she accompanied them into the drawing room; ere however they had time to be seated, in rushed Miss Grace, dripping from the shower bath so lately administered by her affectionate sister, and her eyes so blinded by the visitation of soap suds, that, alas, she saw not the strangers; but having heard her brother's voice as he crossed the hall, she poured forth her bitter complaints, sobbing violently, and relating the particulars of the assault perpetrated by Miss Salter. John laughed rudely—Sir William and Geoffery looked foolish—and Grace, having received a private hint from her sister, wiped her eyes, beheld the gentlemen, and after standing for a moment perfectly aghast, took her departure; while Miss Salter, in utter confusion, and with a countenance of the deepest mortification, yet trying to force a laugh, said it was very childish of Grace to take her silly jest amiss.

"You're such a pair of little innocent children, to be sure," said her brother with a sneer.

"Some people have a particular dislike to practical jokes," observed Sir William Orm.

"This is not the entertainment however that I brought my friends home to receive," continued the amiable Mr. John. "So I beg you'll keep your quarrels to yourselves, and order some dinner."

Mr. Salter entering at the moment Miss Salter made her escape, she flew first to the room to which her sister had returned to repair the injured adornments of her person, opened the door, thrust in her head, grinned a silent defiance, and slamming the door to again, ran down to Mrs. Johnson, to consult in providing a proper entertainment for guests so valuable, or rather so invaluable, as were two fashionable beaux. Hotels and pastry cooks were ordered to be laid under contribution, and no expense spared, let papa scold as he might. In cases of such vital importance, thought Miss Salter, people mustn't stick at trifles. She then ran up stairs again and in breathless haste, with the assistance of a housemaid changed her dress, and throwing on all the gold chains and bracelets she could muster, made her appearance in the drawing-room, looking however, as might have been expected, after so much exertion both mental and corporeal, not quite so cool as she could have wished. Whether, therefore, it was most to her relief or to her disappointment, when she found the gentlemen too much occupied to perceive her entrance, she was not able to define her feelings with sufficient accuracy to decide, although she had plenty of time for self-examination, having nothing to do during the full hour that dinner was delayed by the necessary additions, but to sit in perfect silence beside her sister on a sofa. The fact was, that the four lords of the creation had got to a rubber at whist and looked as if the slightest interruption would annoy them.

And young ladies, who have neither beauty nor fortune to recommend them, are obliged to be so amiable, that they learn to acquire an anticipative perception of what will be pleasing and soothing to the whims and tempers of those falsely important personages—bachelors. Alas! alas! for the dignity of the poor ladies! But this is only another of the many evil consequences of the monopoly of property; for that monopoly being generally vested in the male line, women are early taught that it is only by worshipping some golden calf, in other words some man of fortune, that they can hope to be restored to any participation, either in the comforts of domestic, or in the distinctions of public life. Were there but a little more justice laid in at the foundation of society, surely there would be less occasion for this heartless scramble, so revolting to almost all, while too many of those who were made for better things, find themselves necessitated by circumstances to join the throng, whose every movement and motives they despise; but as they cannot change the world, they are compelled to let the world change them; for tastes and feelings may be outraged, but dinners cannot be dispensed with.

How different an aspect would the world in a very short time present if that offspring of pride and prejudice, the unjust law of primogeniture, were abolished. The slaves of circumstances, whether men or women, would thus, without spoliation or revolution, be gradually emancipated, and the worship of wealth, that most universal and degrading of all idolatries, be put down. The standard of ostentation would be lowered, tis true; but the sum of human felicity would be increased, not only in a natural proportion, but still more through the medium of that ideal estimate which now poisons the very sources of peace. For then, not only would the number possessed of comfortable independence be much greater, but all those so blessed would learn (their understandings being no longer warped by invidious comparisons) to know themselves rich and feel themselves happy. Imagine then pride, prejudice, and famine thus banished from the world. Fancy this amended state of things to have existed for some centuries, and the happy generation then in being looking back on the records of our times. Would they believe what they read to be a grave statement of facts? Certainly not! On the contrary, they would be inclined to suppose the whole not only a work of fiction, but the conception of a madman's mind; so extravagant, so far removed from nature and probability would every action appear, so insufficient every motive, the sacrifices of realties to phantoms so egregiously inordinate, so hyperbolically absurd, that the feelings and adventures of personages so unlike themselves would find no fellowship with their sympathies. As well might we be expected to feel pious awe when we read of the gross idolatries of the ancient sage or modern savage. When, however, we look back on obsolete absurdities, or abroad on foreign follies, and find that when objects are removed from the artificial atmosphere of interests and habits we can discern them with distinctness, it seems not unreasonable to hope, that our mental vision is in itself perfect, and that therefore when the great luminary truth, which is gradually climbing the intellectual horizon, shall have arrived at its meridian, and dissipated the mists of prejudice, we shall behold with equal distinctness those objects, which lying in and around our homes and our times more intimately concern our happiness. Were all the world governed by rational, sufficient, and consistent motives, how few, comparatively speaking, would be the ills of life!

The objectors to the just division of paternal inheritance urge that the wellbeing of a state is best secured by the members of the community having as great a stake in the country as possible, and assert that such a division would lessen that now possessed by the heads of families. But is not the heartfelt happiness, the peaceful and joyous prosperity of the many, not only a greater stake than the ostentatious pride of the few, but one much more calculated to rouse when necessary the lion-spirit of national defence?

To those who would bring forward, as so many insurmountable objections, the thousand remote evils they think they can foresee, as the probable results of the system we thus advocate, we can only reply, that we do not pretend to understand the difficult science of political economy, we only know that what we recommend is just. Do justice then in all things we would say, not in the pride of opinion but on principle, and let the Allwise Disposer of the fates dispose of the consequences.