son has lived.

The unevenness of discipline to which only children are subjected;
the thwarting, resulting from over-anxiety; the indiscreet
indulgence, arising from a love centred all in one object; had been
exaggerated in his education, probably from the circumstance that his
mother (his only surviving parent) had been similarly situated to
himself.

He was already in possession of the comparatively small property
he inherited from his father. The estate on which his mother lived
was her own; and her income gave her the means of indulging or
controlling him, after he had grown to man's estate, as her wayward
disposition and her love of power prompted her.

Had he been double-dealing in his conduct towards her, had he
condescended to humour her in the least, her passionate love for him
would have induced her to strip herself of all her possessions to
add to his dignity or happiness. But although he felt the warmest
affection for her, the regardlessness which she had taught him (by
example, perhaps, more than by precept) of the feelings of others,
was continually prompting him to do things that she, for the time
being, resented as mortal affronts. He would mimic the clergyman she
specially esteemed, even to his very face; he would refuse to visit
her schools for months and months; and, when wearied into going
at last, revenge himself by puzzling the children with the most
ridiculous questions (gravely put) that he could imagine.

All these boyish tricks annoyed and irritated her far more than the
accounts which reached her of more serious misdoings at college and
in town. Of these grave offences she never spoke; of the smaller
misdeeds she hardly ever ceased speaking.

Still, at times, she had great influence over him, and nothing
delighted her more than to exercise it. The submission of his will
to hers was sure to be liberally rewarded; for it gave her great
happiness to extort, from his indifference or his affection, the
concessions which she never sought by force of reason, or by appeals
to principle--concessions which he frequently withheld, solely for
the sake of asserting his independence of her control.

She was anxious for him to marry Miss Duncombe. He cared little or
nothing about it--it was time enough to be married ten years hence;
and so he was dawdling through some months of his life--sometimes
flirting with the nothing-loath Miss Duncombe, sometimes plaguing,
and sometimes delighting his mother,