“It refers to the father; and, I can tell you, my fine fellow, that fathers are of some account, in the arrangement of marriages between parties of any standing. Had not Sir Harry authorized my own proposals, where should I have been? Not a farthing of settlement could I have offered, while he remained Sir Harry; notwithstanding I had the prodigious advantage of the entail. I can tell you what it is, Corny; the existing power is always an important power since we all think more of the present time, than of the future. That is the reason so few of us get to Heaven. As for Herman Mordaunt, I deem it no more than fair to tell you, he is on my side, heart and hand. He likes my offers of settlement; he likes my family; he likes my rank, civil and military; and I am not altogether without the hope, that he likes _me_.” I made no direct answer, and the conversation soon changed. Bulstrode's declaration, however, caused me to remember both the speech and manner of Herman Mordaunt, when he thanked me for saving his daughter's life. I now began to reflect on it; and reflected on it much during the next few months. In the end, the reader will learn the effect it had on my happiness. CHAPTER XVIII. “Good Sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth, Are ye fantastical, or that indeed Which outwardly ye show?” _Banquo_. As I have said already, the adventure on the river made a good deal of noise, in that simple community; and it had the effect to render Guert and myself a sort of heroes, in a small way; bringing me much more into notice, than would otherwise have been the case. I thought that Guert, in particular, would be likely to reap its benefit; for, various elderly persons, who were in the habit of frowning, whenever his name was mentioned, I was given to understand, could now smile; and two or three of the most severe among the Albany moralists, were heard to say that, “after all, there was some good about that Guert Ten Eyck.” The reader will not require to be told, that a high-school moralist, in a place as retired and insulated as Albany, must necessarily be a being that became subject to a very severe code. Morality, as I understand the matter, has a good deal of convention about it. There is town-morality and country-morality, all over the world, as they tell me. But, in America, our morals were, and long have been, separated into three great and very distinct classes; viz.--New England, or puritan-morals; middle colonies, or liberal morals; and southern colonies, or latitudinarian morals. I shall not pretend to point out all the shades of difference in these several schools; though that in which I had myself been taught, was necessarily the most in conformity with my own tastes. There were minor shades to be found in the same school; Guert and myself belonging to different classes. His morals were of the Dutch class; while mine more properly belonged to the English. The great