In fact, it would be exceedingly difficult to find a young fellow of manlier bearing or more striking personal attractions.

His features were regular, and his complexion fresh and youthful looking, and altogether there was in his countenance and whole appearance a cheerful, easy, generous, unreflecting dash of character that not only made him a favorite on first acquaintance, but won confidence by an openness of manner that completely disarmed suspicion.
It might have been observed, however, that his laugh, like his mother's, never, or at least seldom, came directly from the heart, and that there was a hard expression about his otherwise well-formed mouth, such as rarely indicated generosity of feeling, or any acquaintance with the kinder impulses of our nature.

He was his mother's pet and favorite, and her principal wish was that he should be looked upon and addressed as a gentleman, and for that purpose she encouraged him to associate with those only whose rank and position in life rendered any assumption of equality on his part equally arrogant and obtrusive.

In his own family his bearing towards his parents was, in point of fact, the reverse of what it ought to have been.

He not only treated his father with something bordering on contempt, but joined his mother in all that ignorant pride which kept her perpetually bewailing the fate by which she was doomed to become his wife.