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Our Friend the Charlatan by George Gissing
page 5 of 538 (00%)

"As silly a letter as ever I read!" she exclaimed, throwing aside
the poor little sheet of cheap note-paper with its illiterate
gratitude. "Oh, here's something from Lady Susan--pooh! Another
baby. What do I care about her babies! Not one word about Dyce--
not one word. Now, really!"

"I don't remember what you expected," remarked the vicar, mildly.

Mrs. Lashmar paid no heed to. him. With a resentful countenance, she
had pushed the letters aside, and was beginning her meal. Amid all
the so-called duties which she imposed upon herself--for, in her
own way, she bore the burden of the world no less than did the Rev.
Philip--Mrs. Lashmar never lost sight of one great preoccupation,
the interests of her son. He, Dyce Lashmar, only child of the house,
now twenty-seven years old, lived in London, and partly supported
himself as a private tutor. The obscurity of this existence, so
painful a contrast to the hopes his parents had nourished, so
disappointing an outcome of all the thought that had been given to
Dyce's education, and of the not inconsiderable sums spent upon it,
fretted Mrs. Lashmar to the soul; at times she turned in anger
against the young man himself, accusing him of ungrateful
supineness, but more often eased her injured feelings by accusation
of all such persons as, by any possibility, might have aided Dyce to
a career. One of these was Lady Susan Harrop, a very remote relative
of hers. Twice or thrice a year, for half-a-dozen years at least,
Mrs. Lashmar had urged upon Lady Susan the claims of her son to
social countenance and more practical forms of advancement; hitherto
with no result--save, indeed, that Dyce dined once every season at
the Harrops' table. The subject was painful to Mr. Lashmar also, but
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