Before his visit was over Mr. Fairlie
proposed to the lad's father and mother that he should put him into
his own business, at the same time promising that if the boy did
well he should not want someone to bring him forward. Mrs. Pontifex
had her son's interest too much at heart to refuse such an offer, so
the matter was soon arranged, and about a fortnight after the Fairlies
had left, George was sent up by coach to London, where he was met by
his uncle and aunt, with whom it was arranged that he should live.
This was George's great start in life. He now wore more
fashionable clothes than he had yet been accustomed to, and any little
rusticity of gait or pronunciation which he had brought from
Paleham, was so quickly and completely lost that it was ere long
impossible to detect that he had not been born and bred among people
of what is commonly called education. The boy paid great attention
to his work, and more than justified the favourable opinion which
Mr. Fairlie had formed concerning him. Sometimes Mr. Fairlie would
send him down to Paleham for a few days' holiday, and ere long his
parents perceived that he had acquired an air and manner of talking
different from any that he had taken with him from Paleham.
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