ABSTRACT
The vices of Mr Tyrrel, in their present state of augmentation, were peculiarly exercised upon his domestics and 249 [dependents.] But the principal sufferer was 250 [miss Emily MelvileJ the orphan daughter of his father’s sister. Miss Melvile’s mother had married 251 [unfortunately, or rather imprudently,] against the consent of her relations, all of whom had agreed to withdraw their countenance from her in consequence of that precipitate step. Her husband had turned out to be no better than an adventurer; had spent her fortune, which in consequence of the irreconcilableness of her family was less than he expected, and broken her heart. Her infant daughter was left without any resource 252 [upon the wide world]. In this situation the representations / of the people with whom she happened to be placed prevailed upon Mrs Tyrrel, the mother of the squire, to receive her into her family. In equity perhaps she was entitled to that portion of fortune which her mother had forfeited by her imprudence, and which had gone to swell the property of the male representative. But this idea had never entered into the conceptions of either mother or son. Mrs Tyrrel conceived that she performed an act of the most exalted benevolence in admitting miss Emily into a sort of amphibious a situation, which was neither precisely that of a domestic, nor yet marked with the treatment that might seem due to one of the family.
