And here comes the sting.

On leaving school last Christmas, my mother, for the first time, told me the extent of my obligations to this benefactor, and informed me that he wished to know my own choice as to a profession,--that if I preferred Church or Bar, he would maintain me at college." VANCE.--"Body o' me! where's the sting in that?
Help yourself to toddy, my boy, and take more genial views of life." LIONEL.--"You have not heard me out.

I then asked to see my benefactor's letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict, showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him.

Oh, Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the writer was never to see nor hear from me.

He wanted no gratitude; he disbelieved in all professions of it.