THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A CLEVER WOMAN. ILLUSTRATED WITH OCCASIONAL EXTRACTS FROM HER DIARY. BY MRS. TROLLOPE, AUTHOR OF "FATHER EUSTACE," "THE BARNABYS," "MRS. MATHEWS," &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1854. 249. g. 59. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A CLEVER WOMAN. CHAPTER I. CHARLOTTE MORRIS was the maiden name of the lady whose life and character as maid, wife, and widow, it is my purpose to exhibit to the reader in the following pages. There is nothing very romantic or exciting in her history; but if it bears the stamp of truth, it may not be altogether without interest; for, however widely scattered, or variously placed human beings may be, they never fail to recognize a family likeness to VOL. I. B their race, whenever a tolerably faithful portrait of one of them is placed before their eyes; and whenever this occurs, a certain degree of interest is sure to be excited. Mr. Robert Morris, the father of my heroine, who was a banker by profession, and a gentleman by courtesy, continued for many years to exercise his calling with good discretion and with fair success; but my narrative will not begin with any preciseness of detail, till a year or two after he had quitted business, and then he was living in a very comfortable house in Gloucester Place, with an income of fifteen hundred a-year, and one only daughter, who had just completed her seventeenth year. His wife had then been dead for several years; but he had never been tempted to marry again, partly, perhaps, because the reminiscences of his wedded life were not of the placid, peaceful character which would have made him wish for a renewal of that state of existence. For the late Mrs. Morris, though considered by all her acquaintance as a remarkably sensible woman, had not hit upon the right way of managing her husband. Yet he was, in truth, of a nature to be managed very easily, and without enduring any great suffering in the process, had it been carried on quietly; but it was not in the nature of Mrs. Morris to do anything quietly, while, unfortunately, it was not in the nature of her husband to like any thing that was not done quietly; and the consequence of this was, that when Mrs. Morris died, Mr. Morris secretly made a vow that he would never marry again. And this vow was most religiously kept to the end of his life. After the first emotions which he experienced upon finding himself a widower had, in some degree, subsided, the worthy and tranquilspirited gentleman would have felt himself to be in a condition of more than ordinary exemption from the cares and vexations of human existence, had it not been for remembering that he had a tall, stout, flourishing young daughter of nine years old, and that he did not very well know what to do with her. But Mr. Morris was a kind-hearted, conscientious man, and he had not meditated long upon the subject, before a scheme suggested itself to him, which seemed to unite |