Bred in the Bone by James Payn
page 101 of 506 (19%)
page 101 of 506 (19%)
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as steadfast as Carew's. He was aimless and indolent; but as a mean man,
who brings himself to perform some act of munificence, will effect it unsparingly, or a selfish man, "when he is about it," will be all self-abnegation; so, when he _had_ made up his mind, his determination was rock. Mrs. Yorke then felt sure of her son so far, and rejoiced at it. But she was disturbed about him on other accounts. Perhaps, notwithstanding her assertion to the contrary, she may have had some scanty hopes of her son's success at Crompton; or perhaps his want of it placed before her for the first time the gigantic obstacles that lay in his social path. Were the times really gone by which she had known, wherein personal beauty, and youth, and grace of manner could win their way to any height? Or did she misjudge her own sex, while so sagacious an observer of the other? Her Dick was still very young; but his appearance should surely have done something for him even now; yet hitherto it had won him nothing but friendships of doubtful value, one of which, indeed, had just done him infinite hurt. Were girls with fortunes, then, as prudent and calculating as those who were penniless, as she had been? It did not strike her that they were infinitely more unapproachable; or rather, such was her estimation of her son's attractions, that she thought he had only to be seen in his opera-stall to become the magnet of every female heart. Had she been mistaken altogether in her plan for his future? As she sat over the dropping embers of the fire, while the ceaseless rain huddled against the pane without, a terrible vision crossed her mind. She saw her son, no longer young, wan with dissipation and excess, peevish and fretting for the luxuries which she herself, old and decrepit, could no longer procure for him. She even heard a voice reproaching her as the cause of their common ruin: "Why did you humor me, woman, when I should have been corrected? Why did you bring me up to |
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