In truth his prospects at this
peculiar period were anything but agreeable. Here his love-suit, if it
could be called so, had just been rejected by Miss Clinton, in a manner
that utterly precluded all future hope in that quarter. With Kathleen
Cavanagh he had been equally unsuccessful. His brother Edward was now at
home, too, a favorite with, and inseparable from his father, who of late
maintained any intercourse that took place between himself and Hycy,
with a spirit of cool, easy sarcasm, that was worse than anger itself.
His mother, also, in consequence of her unjustifiable attempts to
defend her son's irregularities, had lost nearly all influence with her
husband, and if the latter should withdraw, as he had threatened to
do, the allowance of a hundred a year with which he supplied him, he
scarcely saw on what hand he could turn. With Kathleen Cavanagh and Miss
Clinton he now felt equally indignant, nor did his friend Harry escape
a strong portion of his ill-will. Hycy, not being overburthened with
either a love or practice of truth himself, could not for a moment yield
credence to the assertion of young Clinton, that he took no stops to
prejudice his sister against him. He took it for granted, therefore,
that it was to his interference he owed the reception he had just got,
and he determined in some way or other to repay him for the ill-services
he had rendered him.
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