ABSTRACT
I have already mentioned that the father of Margaret, though living at present in the most unaffected rural simplicity, still retained the notion that he belonged to another class, and was of a higher order of beings, than the inglorious neighbourhood by which he was surrounded. Since he had been discarded by his more opulent relatives, he had indeed sought to make a virtue of necessity, and had pretended, even perhaps to his own heart, to ‘scorn delights, and live laborious days’, to be fully reconciled to his lot, and to think of himself no better than the village hinds in the midst of whom he dwelt. a . But the spark of ambition, / though smothered in him, was not extinct; favourable circumstances might yet fan it into a flame.
