His friend
responded to the communication very sensibly, trying, without exactly
saying it, and without a shadow of success, to make him see what a fool
he was, and congratulating him all the more warmly on his good fortune
that a vague hope went up in him of a share in the same. For Cornelius
had not failed to use large words in making mention of the estate and
the fortune accompanying it; and in the higher position, as Vavasor
considered it, which Mr. Raymount would henceforth occupy as one of the
proprietors of England, therefore as a man of influence in his country
and its politics, he saw something like an approximative movement in the
edges of the gulf that divided him from Hester: she would not unlikely
come in for a personal share in this large fortune; and if he could but
see a possibility of existence without his aunt's money, he would, he
_almost_ said to himself, marry Hester, and take the risk of his
aunt's displeasure. At the same time she would doubtless now look with
more favor on his preference--he must not yet say _choice!_ There
could be nothing insuperably offensive to her pride at least in his
proposing to marry the daughter of a country squire.
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