There is a very good
living kept for you, I understand, hereabouts."
"Which you suppose has biassed me?"
"But _that_ I am sure it has not," cried Fanny.
"Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than
I would affirm myself. On the contrary, the knowing
that there was such a provision for me probably did
bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should.
There was no natural disinclination to be overcome,
and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman
for knowing that he will have a competence early in life.
I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have been
influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father
was too conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt
that I was biased, but I think it was blamelessly."
"It is the same sort of thing," said Fanny, after a
short pause, "as for the son of an admiral to go into
the navy, or the son of a general to be in the army,
and nobody sees anything wrong in that. Nobody wonders
that they should prefer the line where their friends can
serve them best, or suspects them to be less in earnest
in it than they appear.
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