We have already spoken of Miss Sampson, and have said or intimated that she was not a fool. We have also spoken of Sir Gilbert Sampson, and we have acknowledged that he was a man of good understanding. Miss Sampson had been an indulged child; some called her a spoiled child, but we do not admit that indulgence always spoils children. There is a great deal depending on the manner in which indulgence is administered. Indulgence or strictness in the hands of a simpleton may be made equally injurious. Miss Sampson certainly had not been snubbed, lectured, scolded at, talked to, and dragged about all her life in leading-strings; and Miss Sampson was certainly a thoughtless, good-tempered creature, not overburdened with taste, and not always so very attentive to minuter observances as many others of her own station; but whether she would have been any more thoughtful and reserved by a continued course of sloppy, sleepy, prosy, common-place lecturing, is very doubtful. Miss Sampson and her father were by no means proud, resentful, or suspicious. For though they both had heard the rumor touching the probable evanescence of Mr. John Martindale’s property; and though they both might have had reason to suppose that only property could induce Mr. Philip to make advances of a serious nature, and though he had once before paid, and afterwards discontinued his attentions, yet Sir Gilbert Sampson, who was a sensible man, and Miss Sampson, who was not a fool, were pleased with the very particular notice taken of the latter under present circumstances. The parties were therefore quits; for if it was manifest to Miss Sampson that Philip Martindale’s affection for her was only founded on her property, it was as manifest to Philip Martindale that Miss Sampson’s regard for him could only be on account of his title.