Pagina 399 van 817

"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth, with energy; "You have

reduced him to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty.

You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been

designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of

that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You

have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his

misfortunes with contempt and ridicule."