I had no power to remedy the evil: as my elder brother, and as a man,
he thought himself entitled to govern and despise me. He always treated me
as a frivolous girl, with whom it was waste of time to converse, and never
spoke to me at all except to direct or admonish. Hence I could do nothing
but regret his habits. Their consequences to himself it was beyond my
power to prevent.

For a long time I was totally unaware of the tendencies of this mode of
life. I did not suspect that a brother's passions would carry him beyond
the bound of vulgar prudence, or induce him to encroach on those funds
from which his present enjoyments were derived. I knew him to be endowed
with an acute understanding, and imagined that this would point out, with
sufficient clearness, the wisdom of limiting his expenses to his
income.

In my daily conversations with my father, I never voluntarily
introduced Frank as our topic, unless by the harmless and trite questions
of "When was he here?" "Where has he gone?" and the like. We met only by
accident, at his lodgings; when I entered the room where he was, he never
thought of bestowing more than a transient look on me, just to know who it
was that approached. Circumstances at length, however, occurred, which put
an end to this state of neutrality.

I heard, twice or thrice a year, from my cousin Risberg. One day a
letter arrived in which he obscurely intimated that the failure of
remittances from my father, for more than half a year, had reduced him to
great distress. My father had always taught him to regard himself as
entitled to all the privileges of a son; had sent him to Europe under
express conditions of supplying him with a reasonable stipend, till he