ssed you or Gerald, if you opened your heart to either, it
stung me to the quick. I it was who said to my mother, "Caress him not,
or I shall think you love him better than me." I it was who widened,
from my veriest childhood, the breach between Gerald and yourself. I
it was who gave to the childish reproach a venom, and to the childish
quarrel a barb. Was this love? Yes, it was love; but I could not endure
that ye should love one another as ye loved me. It delighted me when
one confided to my ear a complaint against the other, and said, "Aubrey,
this blow could not have come from thee!"

Montreuil early perceived my bias of temper: he might have corrected it
and with ease. I was not evil in disposition; I was insensible of my own
vice. Had its malignity been revealed to me, I should have recoiled in
horror. Montreuil had a vast power over me; he could mould me at his
will. Montreuil, I repeat, might have saved me, and thyself, and a third
being, better and purer than either of us was, even in our cradles.
Montreuil did not: he had an object to serve, and he sacrificed our
whole house to it. He found me one day weeping over a dog that I had
killed. "Why did you destroy it?" he said; and I answered, "Because it
loved Morton better than me!" And the priest said, "Thou didst right,
Aubrey!" Yes, from that time he took advantage of my infirmity, and
could rouse or calm all my passions in proportion as he irritated or
soothed it.

You know this man's object during the latter period of his residence
with us: it was the restoration of the House of Stuart. He was
alternately the spy and the agitator in that cause. Among more
comprehensive plans for effecting this object, was that of securing the
heirs to the great wealth and popular name of Sir William Devereux. This
was only a minor mesh in the intricate web of his schemes; but it is the
character of the man to take exactly the same pains, and pursue the same
laborious intrigues, for a small object as for a great one. His first
impression, on entering our house, was in favour of Gerald; and I
believe he really likes him to this day better than either of us.
Partly your sarcasms, partly Gerald's disputes with you, partly
my representations,--for I was jealous even of the love of
Montreuil,--prepossessed him against you. He thought, too, that Gerald
had more talent to serve his purposes than yourself and more facility in
being moulded to them; and he believed our uncle's partia