262 CARRIAGE. 



no necessity for my expressing a wish 

 on tHs subject, for my father, anxious 

 to enter on his new engagement, set 

 apart a portion of the business at Ports- 

 mouth for my individual and independent 

 support; and having already sanctioned 

 the matrimonial connection I had formed, 

 he advised an early settlement of it that 

 as his time would now be wholly taken 

 up in London, I might devote mine to 

 looking after his interest, as well as my 

 own, in Hampshire; instead of spending 

 it in taking long journeys, and ram- 

 bling over the heaths, and studying the 

 natural curiosities and antiquities of 

 Dorsetshire. 



Accordingly, a house that he had re- 

 cently purchased, under peculiar circum- 

 stances, for 3000?., was handsomely fur- 

 nished for the reception of a new mar- 

 ried couple, and I lost no time in making 

 the object of my choice the mistress of 

 a modest, though respectable abode. To 



