At all events, whatever were his notions or apprehensions he was by this time considerably more calm and composed. He had the satisfaction of knowing that his daughter was alive and well, and he had the pleasing prospect of speedily seeing her again. Of her moral and mental qualities, and of her intellectual improvement, he had been in the constant habit of receiving flattering and agreeable accounts, and he was not unwilling to believe them. There was some little mortification, that he had travelled so far and all to no purpose. But he had no other means of ascertaining where his daughter was. It was a conceit of his own, (though partly aided by his late brother-in-law,) not to keep any direct correspondence with his daughter. His motive was, that as there was a possibility that he might never return to England, and that he might not ever have it in his power to provide for her according to his former means, therefore he thought it best not to excite any expectations which might be frustrated, or to excite in her mind any interest concerning himself, which might ultimately be productive of only pain and uneasiness. He wished his poor child to consider herself an orphan, thinking it better to surprise her with a living parent than to inflict grief on her mind at the thoughts of one deceased. This scheme did not entirely succeed. The worthy and benevolent rector of Smatterton could not help now and then saying a favourable word or two concerning his poor brother Primrose; and as Dr Greendale’s was the charity that hopeth all things and believeth all things, he was not distrustful of his brother’s promises, but was nearly, if not altogether, as sanguine as Mr Primrose himself. By degrees Penelope came to have an interest in her absent parent; and well it was for her that Dr Greendale had thus accustomed her to think of her father: for when the good rector departed this life he did not leave his niece quite so orphaned as if she had had no knowledge or thought of her absent father. But to proceed with our story.