ared him.
In fact, he was to her a very formidable personage, and one would have
thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he
could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to
the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber,
"my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would
trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to
honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness,
would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had
amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say
honest) gambling in the funds, and otherwise.

Yes! John Dillaway was rich; and, climax to his praise, rich by his own
keen skill, independent of his father, though he condescended still to
bleed him. In this "money century," as Kohl, the graphic traveller, has
called it, riches "cover the multitude of sins;" leaving poor Maria's
charity to cover its own naked virtues, if it can. So John was the
father's darling, notwithstanding the very heartless and unbecoming
conduct he had exhibited daily for these thirty years, and the marked
scorn wherewithal he treated that pudgy city knight, his dear
progenitor; but then, let us repeat it as Sir Thomas did--Jack was
rich--rich, and such a comfort to his father; whereas Maria, poor fool,
with all her cheap unmarketable love and duty, never had earned a
penny--never could, but was born to be a drain upon him. Therefore did
he scorn her, and put aside her kindnesses, because she could not "make
money."

For what end on earth should a man make money! It is reasonable to
reply, for the happiness' sake of others and himself; but, in the
frequent case of a rich and cold Sir Thomas, what can be the object in
such? Not to purchase happiness therewith himself, nor yet to distribute
it to others; a very dog in the manger, he snarls above the hay he
cannot eat, and is full of any thoughts rather than of giving: whilst,
as for his own pleasure, he manifestly will not stop a minute to enjoy a
taste of happiness, even if he finds it in his home; nay, more, if it
meets him by the way, and wishes to cling about his heart, he will be
found often to fling it off with scorn, as a reaper would the wild sweet
corn-flower in some handful of wheat he is cutting. O, Sir Thomas! is
not poor Maria's love worth more than all your rich rude Jack's sudden
flush of money? is it