The Literary echo, and Pawcatuck advertiser. [volume] (Westerly, R.I.) 1851-1854, 1853-08-18
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THE BANKERS DAUGHTER.

There was once great banker il
London, who had fine house in Port.
land Place, and very dirty old house
in the city; and if the latter looked the
image of business and riches, the former
looked the image of luxury and display
He himself was a mild man, whose
ostentation was of a quiet, but not the
less of an active kind. His movements
were always calm and Tranquil, and his
clothes plain but the former were
stately, the latter were in the best
fashion. Holditch was his coachmakel
in those days; Ude's first cousin was his
cook; his servants walked up stairs to
Announce a visitor to the time of the
Dead March in Saul, and opened both
valves of the folding doors at once with
a grace that could only be acquired by
long practice. Everything seemed to
move in his house by rule, and nothing
was ever seen to 90 wrong. All the
lackeys were powdered, and the women
servants had their caps prescribed to
them. His wife was the daughter of a
country.gentleman of a very old race, a
woman of good manners and warm
heart. Though there were two car
riages always at her especial command,
she sometimes walked on her feet, even
in London, and would not suffer an ac-
count of her parents to find its way into
the Morning Post" The banker and
his wife had but one child, daughter,
and very pretty and very sweet girl
she was as ever my eyes saw. She was
not very tall, though very beautifully
formed and exquisitcly graceful. She
was, indeed, the least affected person
that ever was seen; for, accustomed
from her very earliest days to perfect
ease in every respect-denicd nothing
that was virtuous and right-taught by
her mother to estimate high qualities ~
too much habituated to wealth to regard
it is an object-and too frequently
brought in contact with rank to estimate
it above its value-she had nothing to
covct and nothing to assume. Her face
was sweet and thoughtful, though the
thoughts were evidently cheerful ones,
and her voice was full Of melody and
gentlencss Her name was Alice Her.
bert, and she was soon the admired of
all admirers. People looked for her at
the opera and the park, declared her
beautiful, adorable, divine she became
the wonder, the rage, the fashion /; and
everybody added, when they spoke about
her, that she would have half a million
at the least. Now, Mr.. Herbert him
self was not at all anxious that his
daughter should marry .any of the men
that first presented themselves, because
none of them were above the rank of
baron; nor was Mrs. Herbert anxious
either, because she did not wish to part
with her daughter nor was Alice her.
self-I do not know well why-perhaps
she thought that part of the men who
surrounded her were fops, and as many
more we're libertines, and the rest we're
fools, and Alice did not feel more in
clined to choose out Of those three
classes than her father did out of the
three inferior grades of the nobility
There was, indeed, a young man in the
Guard, distantly connected with her
mothers family, who was neither fop,
libertine, or fool-a gentleman, an ac-
eomplished man, and man Of good
feeling, who was often at Mr.. Herbert's
house, but father, mother, and daughter
all thought him quite out of the ques-
ton the father, because he was not a
duke; the mother, because he was
soldier f; the daughter, because he had
never given her the slightest reason to
believe he either admired or loved her
AS he had some two thousand a year,
he might have been good match for
some clcrgyman's daughter, but could
not pretend to Miss Herbert. Alice
certainly liked him better than any other
man she had ever seen, and once she
found his eyes fixed upon her from the
other side Of the ballroom with an cx-