You know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had little more than a thousand a year.

If he had not played, and did not care to marry, it would have been quite enough--ever so much more than younger sons of dukes often have; but he was--well, a _mauvais sujet_--you know what that is.

I don't want to say any ill of him--more than I really know--but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men, and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid great sums for him.

I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would change the past if he could.
I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame--aged eight years--who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious young man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a human being's heart.
'Austin--your papa--was very kind to him--_very_; but then, you know, he's an oddity, dear--he _is_ an oddity, though no one may have told you before--and he never forgave him for his marriage.

Your father, I suppose, knew more about the lady than I did--I was young then--but there were various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which some people said ought to have totally separated them.