Although brought up in unclouded prosperity, amid luxury
and affluence, she was still prepared for the day of adversity, if it
should ever come.
As the heiress of immense wealth, her hand was eagerly sought in the
aristocratic circle around her; but thus far she had resisted all these
attacks upon her heart, and upon her prospective riches. In the crowd of
suitors who gathered around her was Anthony Maxwell. In the item of
wealth his fortune was comparatively small; and in that of a noble
character, smaller still. Emily could have forgiven him the want of the
former, but the latter was imperatively demanded. At the young lawyer's
return from the North, and on his first appearance at the bar, Emily had
regarded him with more than ordinary attention. But, after the death of
his father, the reports which reached her ears of his dissolute habits
and inclinations caused her to regard him with distrust. His wit,
accomplishments and native suavity, had procured him admission into the
circle of her more favored friends. But the report of his vices had as
promptly produced his expulsion.
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