He came again in the evening to speak with Mr. Vincy, who, just

returned from Stone Court, was feeling sure that it would not be long

before he heard of Mr. Featherstone's demise. The felicitous word

"demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits

even above their usual evening pitch. The right word is always a

power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. Considered as

a demise, old Featherstone's death assumed a merely legal aspect, so

that Mr. Vincy could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without

even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr. Vincy hated both

solemnity and affectation. Who was ever awe struck about a testator,

or sang a hymn on the title to real property? Mr. Vincy was inclined

to take a jovial view of all things that evening: he even observed to

Lydgate that Fred had got the family constitution after all, and would

soon be as fine a fellow as ever again; and when his approbation of

Rosamond's engagement was asked for, he gave it with astonishing

facility, passing at once to general remarks on the desirableness of

matrimony for young men and maidens, and apparently deducing from the

whole the appropriateness of a little more punch.




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