 only child had given him, as it does to many, a sort of
inequality in those parts of the character which are usually formed by the
number of years that a person 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-loth Miss Duncombe, sometimes plaguing
