The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 271: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

964 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. had been waiting at the door. Its wealthy owner, as he threw himself back in the softly-cushioned seat, might have envied the beggar or shivering artisan who cast admiring eyes upon it, as it rolled past them in the street. Wealth does not always confer happiness— there 1s something more in a heart void of reproach than worldlings or than sceptics dream. If Small, in his way, was a man of genius, he was blessed with a partner who, in the sphere to which her sex confined her, was not unworthy of her husband— a clear-sighted, unscrupulous, mancuvring woman: a scrupulous observer of the proprieties of life, because her position in society depended upon it; charitable in words—for they cost nothing ; she was one of the com- mittee of the ladies of Manchester for assisting the poor, and by making herself useful—attending to the correspondence—gradually contrived that the admuinis- tration of the funds should pass through her hands. It was astonishing upon how small an allowance she and her daughters contrived to dress elegantly—perhaps expensively would have been a more fitting word; for elegance is inseparable from taste, and that was not one of the gifts with which Providence had blessed the indefatigable Mrs. Small. On the very day on which the interview took place between her husband and his partner, a hired chaise drove up to the door of her house; and, after it had been suffered to remain a sufficient time to excite the comments and admiration of the neighbours and ser- COniiclooecl SS (SO