All the points of
character that rendered her father so amiable and so winning, and which
were rather felt than perceived, in his cousin were salient and bold, and
if it may be thus expressed, had become indurated by mental suffering and
disappointment.
The cousins were both rich, though in ways as opposite as their
dispositions and habits of thought. Edward Effingham possessed a large
hereditary property, that brought a good income, and which attached him to
this world of ours by kindly feelings towards its land and water; while
John, much the wealthier of the two, having inherited a large commercial
fortune, did not own ground enough to bury him. As he sometimes deridingly
said, he "kept his gold in corporations, that were as soulless
as himself."
Still, John Effingham was a man of cultivated mind, of extensive
intercourse with the world, and of manners that varied with the occasion;
or perhaps it were better to say, with his humours. In all these
particulars but the latter the cousins were alike; Edward Effingham's
deportment being as equal as his temper, though also distinguished for a
knowledge of society.
These gentlemen had embarked at London, on their fiftieth birthday, in the
packet of the 1st of October, bound to New York; the lands and family
residence of the proprietor lying in the state of that name, of which all
of the parties were natives.
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