I remember some time ago I saw he had a black eye, and he said that he and my 'd---- brother Abel,' as he elegantly expressed it, had met somewhere the night before, and Abel was drunk and gave him the lie, and they fought it out.

I think, by-the-way, that's the last I've heard of brother Abel." There was a slight touch of the old manner in the tone with which Fanny ended her remark; after which she relapsed into the previous half-apathetic condition.
"Fanny, I wish I could do something for Abel." Fanny Dinks looked at Hope Wayne with an incredulous smile, and said, "I thought once you would marry him; and so did he, I fancy." "What does he do?
and how can I reach him ?" asked Hope, entirely disregarding Fanny's remark.
"He lives at the old place in Grand Street, I believe; the Lord knows how; I'm sure I don't.

I suppose he gambles when he isn't drunk." "But about Congress ?" inquired Hope.
"I don't know any thing about that.

Abel and father used to say that no gentleman would ever have any thing to do with politics; so I never heard any thing, and I'm sure I don't know what he's going to do." Fanny apparently supposed her last remark would end the conversation.

Not that she wished to end it--not that she was sorry to see Hope Wayne again and to talk with her--not that she wanted or cared for any thing in particular, no, not even for her lord and master, who burst into the room with an oath, as usual, and with his small, swinish eyes heavy with drowsiness.
The master of the house was evidently just down.