CHAPTER XXI.
A Quarrel About an Heiress Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into old Mr.
Osborne's soul, which she was to realize.

He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell Square.

My daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honour--I say, which does them honour.

I'm a plain, simple, humble British merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented father.
You'll find us a united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected, family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome, my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms to you, it does really.

I'm a frank man, and I like you.