Besides, revenge is sweetened by delay; and I indulge too freely in the passion to rob it of any of its zest.

I've watched this lad--this Sheppard--from infancy; and, though I have apparently concerned myself little about him, I have never lost sight of my purpose.

I have suffered him to be brought up decently--honestly; because I would make his fall the greater, and deepen the wound I meant to inflict upon his mother.
From this night I shall pursue a different course; from this night his ruin may be dated.

He is in the care of those who will not leave the task assigned to them--the utter perversion of his principles--half-finished.

And when I have steeped him to the lips in vice and depravity; when I have led him to the commission of every crime; when there is neither retreat nor advance for him; when he has plundered his benefactor, and broken the heart of his mother--then--but not till then, I will consign him to the fate to which I consigned his father.