"Ever your affectionate
"C.M."




Book 1 Chapter 5



Lord Marney left several children; his heir was five years
older than the next son Charles who at the period of his
father's death was at Christchurch and had just entered the
last year of his minority. Attaining that age, he received
the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, his portion, a third of
which amount his expenditure had then already anticipated.
Egremont had been brought up in the enjoyment of every comfort
and every luxury that refinement could devise and wealth
furnish. He was a favourite child. His parents emulated each
other in pampering and indulging him. Every freak was
pardoned, every whim was gratified. He might ride what horses
he liked, and if he broke their knees, what in another would
have been deemed a flagrant sin, was in him held only a proof
of reckless spirit. If he were not a thoroughly selfish and
altogether wilful person, but very much the reverse, it was
not the fault of his parents, but rather the operation of a
benignant nature that had bestowed on him a generous spirit
and a tender heart, though accompanied with a dangerous
susceptibility that made him the child and creature of