I have not had the pleasure of seeing your mother, but I would lay you a wager that that is the trouble.

She is passionately fond of you, and her hopes, like all intense hopes, keep trembling into fears." Rowland, as he spoke, had an instinctive vision of how such a beautiful young fellow must be loved by his female relatives.
Roderick frowned, and with an impatient gesture, "I do her justice," he cried.

"May she never do me less!" Then after a moment's hesitation, "I 'll tell you the perfect truth," he went on.

"I have to fill a double place.

I have to be my brother as well as myself.