صفحة 417 من 817

Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many

years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good

conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my

father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was

his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My

father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge; most

important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the

extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a

gentleman's education. My father was not only fond of this young

man's society, whose manners were always engaging, he had also

the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his

profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it

is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very

different manner.