At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an
old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most
natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the
successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old
fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him
credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often
say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him
out,--he is so different from other people."
Which he is. There is no denying this fact, which is equally evident in
his daily life, his education of his children, his conduct to his
servants and dependants, his employment of time, his favorite aims in
life, and in everything he does or says, in brief. And of course there
are plenty who cavil at his peculiar views, and who cannot at all
understand his unconventional ways, and his apparent want of all worldly
wisdom in the general conduct of his affairs. And yet, somehow, these
affairs prosper. Although he declined a valuable appointment for his
son, and preferred that he should make his own way in the profession he
had chosen, bound by no obligation, and unfettered by the trammels of
any party,--although he did this, to the astonishment of all who did
_not_ know him, yet is it not a fact that the young barrister's career
has been, and is, as brilliant and successful as though he had had a
dozen influential personages to advance him? And though he permitted his
daughter to marry, not the rich squire's son, nor the baronet, who each
sought her hand, but a man comparatively poor and unknown, who loved
her, and whom she loved, did it not turn out to be one of those
marriages that we can recognize to have been "made in heaven," and even
the worldly-wise see to be happy and prosperous?
But our Everett is growing old.
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