There Is No Hurry by Ann Maria Hall — Read

Five years have passed. Dr. John Adams was "settled" in a small "showy" house in the vicinity of Mayfair; he had, the world said, made an excellent match. He married a very pretty girl, "highly connected," and was considered to be possessed of personal property, because, for so young a physician, Dr. Adams lived in "a superior style." His brother Charles was still residing in the old farm-house, to which, beyond the mere keeping it in repair, he had done but little, except, indeed, adding a wife to his establishment -- a very gentle, loving, yet industrious girl, whose dower was too small to have been her only attraction. Thus both brothers might be said to be fairly launched in life.

It might be imagined that Charles Adams, having determined to reside in his native village, and remain, what his father and grandfather had been, a simple gentleman farmer, and that rather on a small than a large scale, was altogether without that feeling of ambition which stimulates exertion and elevates the mind. Charles Adams had quite enough of this -- which may be said, like fire, to be "a good servant, but a bad master" -- but he made it subservient to the dictates of prudence -- and a forethought, the gift, perhaps, that, above all others, we should most earnestly covet for those whose prosperity we would secure.