CHAPTER XIX.
THE BALL.
I have often dressed for a storming party with less of trepidation than I felt on the evening of Sir George Dashwood's ball.

Since the eventful day of the election I had never seen Miss Dashwood; therefore, as to what precise position I might occupy in her favor was a matter of great doubt in my mind, and great import to my happiness.

That I myself loved her, was a matter of which all the badinage of my friends regarding her made me painfully conscious; but that, in our relative positions, such an attachment was all but hopeless, I could not disguise from myself.

Young as I was, I well knew to what a heritage of debt, lawsuit, and difficulty I was born to succeed.

In my own resources and means of advancement I had no confidence whatever, had even the profession to which I was destined been more of my choice.