ABSTRACT
It is time that I should proceed to explain the relation that at this time existed between Clifford and Henrietta. They had first met, in the interval that occurred between my leaving Winchester and the expedition of Penruddock, I being then a student in the university. Henrietta was on a visit to a friend of Mrs Willis at Petersfield on the confines of Sussex, and Clifford’s mother was a resident in the same place. The town of Petersfield, though accustomed to the privilege of sending two members to parliament, was of small dimensions; and 272such of its inhabitants, as / were raised in any degree above the lowest class in the community, were habituated to live in much harmony and good neighbourhood with each other. The lady at whose house Henrietta now resided for a few weeks, and Mrs Clifford, were old friends. My school-mate, who at this time had left Winchester, and whose destination in life was yet unsettled, was for the present under the roof of his mother. He was advertised, a as I have since heard, of the expected visit of Henrietta, and warned to be upon his guard not to lose his heart to her, as he was an adventurer only, and she was an heiress. Such warnings will often be found to fail of producing the effect which their prudent authors have in view. In a country-town the merits of a young person, especially if she be fair, and combine a certain dignity of understanding with a conspicuous frankness of heart, will be apt to be exaggerated. The merits of Henrietta could not be exaggerated. Every / assembly and every tea-table in Petersfield resounded with her praises, for a whole week before she arrived. On the day that was fixed for her coming, the town was in commotion. Clifford and his mother were at the dwelling of her hostess when she alighted; and if his expectations of the beautiful stranger had been raised before she appeared, his feelings now were like those of the Queen of Sheba in holy writ: ‘Lo, I believed not the report that I heard, until I saw; and behold, the half was not told unto me.’ b If the reader has in any way entered into the portraits I have attempted of Clifford and Henrietta, he need not be told how improbable it was, that a petty town, like Petersfield, should contain an individual that could in the smallest degree vie with either. In the meantime, as it was an adjudged case, that Henrietta was a being ‘out of the young man’s sphere’, c and as Clifford was notorious for a disposition the very opposite of sordidness / and intrigue, it was not considered as in any way necessary to put a bar to their intercourse.
