"His manner was extremely serious; the expression of his countenance sad to a degree—deeply, intensely sad, I might say; yet through that deep sadness there was a tender sweetness which was to me most interesting. I never shall forget his smile—for laugh he never was heard to do.
"I soon discovered two things, that made me feel more for him than all the rest. One, that he was an extremely well-informed boy, and had received a home education of a very superior order; and the other, that he was most unfortunate, and that his misfortunes had one peculiar ingredient of bitterness in them, namely, that they were of a nature to excite the scorn and contempt of the vulgar herd that surrounded him, rather than to move their rude hearts to sympathy and pity.
"The propensity to good in rough, vulgar, thoughtless human beings, is very apt to show itself in this way—in a sort of contemptuous disgust against vice and folly, and an alienation from those connected with it, however innocent We must accept it, upon reflection, I suppose, as a rude form of good inclination; but I was too young for reflection—too young to make allowances, too young to be equitable. Such conduct appeared to me the most glaring and barbarous injustice, and excited in me a passion ate indignation.
"Never did I hear St. Leger taunted, as he often was, with the frailties of his mother or the errors of his father, but my heart was all in a flame—my fist clinched—my cheek burning. Many a fellow have I laid prostrate upon the earth with a sudden blow who dared, in my presence, to chase the color from St. Leger's cheek by alluding to the subject. There was this remarkable in St. Leger, by the way, that he never colored when his mother's shame or his father's end was alluded to, but went deadly pale.
"The history was a melancholy one of human frailty, and is soon told. His mother had been extremely beautiful, his father the possessor of a small independent fortune. They had lived happily together many years, and she had brought him five children; four girls and this boy. I have heard that the father doted with no common passion—in a husband, Catherine—upon the beautiful creature, who was moreover accomplished and clever. She seemed devoted to her children, and had given no common attention to her boy in his early years. Hence his mental accomplishments. The husband was, I suspect, rather her inferior in intellect; and scarcely her equal in refinement and manner, but it's no matter, it would have been probably the same whatever he had been. She who will run astray under one set of circumstances, would probably have run astray under any. She was very vain of her beauty and talents, and had been spoiled by the idolatry and flattery of all who surrounded her.
"I will not pain you by entering into any particulars; in brief, she disgraced herself, and was ruined.
"The rage, the passionate despair, the blind fury of the injured husband, it was said, exceeded all bounds. There was of course every sort of public scandal. Legal proceedings and the necessary consequences—a divorce. The wretched history did not even end here. She suffered horribly from shame and despair I have been told, but the shame and despair, had not the effect it ought to have produced. She fell from bad to worse, and was utterly lost. The husband did the same. Wild with the stings of wounded affection, blinded with suffering, he flew for refuge to any excitement which would for a moment assuage his agonies; the gaming-table, and excess in drinking, soon finished the dismal story. He shot himself in a paroxysm of delirium tremens, after having lost almost every penny he possessed at Faro.
"You tremble Catherine. Your hand in mine is cold. Oh the pernicious woman! Oh the depths of the misery—if I were indeed to tell you all I have met with and known—which are entailed upon the race by the vanity, the folly, and the vice of women. Angels! yes, angels you are. Sweet Saint—sweet Catherine, and men fall down and worship you—but woe for them when she they worship, proves a fiend.
"Dear Miss Arnold, you are shedding tears—but you would have this dismal story. You had better hear no more of it, let me stop now."
"Go on—pray go on, Edgar. Tell us about the poor boy and the girls, you said there were four of them."