rhaps the fond
anticipations of youth may have led you to expect. Your father has no
paternal feelings that I can discover; he has wealth, and he wishes to
leave it--he has therefore sought you out. But he is despotic, violent,
and absurd; the least opposition to his will makes him furious, and I am
sorry to add, that I am afraid that he is very mean. He suffered
severely when young from poverty, and his own father was almost as
authoritative and unforgiving as himself. And now I will state how it
was that you were left at the Asylum when an infant. Your grandfather
had procured for your father a commission in the army, and soon
afterwards procured him a lieutenancy. He ordered him to marry a young
lady of large fortune, whom he had never seen, and sent for him for that
purpose. I understand that she was very beautiful, and had your father
seen her, it is probable he would have made no objection; but he very
foolishly sent a peremptory refusal, for which he was dismissed for
ever. In a short time afterwards your father fell in love with a young
lady of great personal attractions, and supposed to possess a large
fortune. To deceive her, he pretended to be the heir to the earldom,
and, after a hasty courtship, they ran off, and were married. When they
compared notes, which they soon did, it was discovered that, on his
side, he had nothing but the pay of a subaltern, and on hers, that she
had not one shilling. Your father stormed, and called his wife an
impostor; she recriminated, and the second morning after the marriage
was passed in tears on her side, and oaths, curses, and revilings on
his. The lady, however, appeared the more sensible party of the two.
Their marriage was not known, she had run away on a pretence to visit a
relative, and it was actually supposed in the county town where she
resided, that such was the case. `Why should we quarrel in this way?'
observed she. `You, Edmund, wished to marry a fortune, and not me--I
may plead guilty to the same duplicity. We have made a mistake; but it
is not too late. It is supposed that I am on a visit to --, and that
you are on furlough for a few days. Did you confide your secret to any
of your brother officers?' `Not one,' muttered your father. `Well,
then, let us part as if nothing had happened, and nobody will be the
wiser. We are equally interested in keeping the secret. Is it
agreed?'--Your father immediately consented. He accompanied your mother