Years of reckless folly fled away, before these wholesome lessons of
experience were forced upon Algernon's unguarded heart. Fearful of
falling into his brother's error, he ran into the contrary extreme, and
never suspected himself a dupe, until he found himself the victim of
some designing adventurer, who had served a longer apprenticeship to the
world, and had gained a more perfect knowledge of the fallibility of its
children.
His father groaned over his extravagant bills: yet not one-third of the
money remitted to Algernon was expended by him. His uncle was the
principal aggressor; for he felt no remorse while introducing his nephew
to scenes which, in his early days, had effected his own ruin. Their
immoral tendency, and the sorrow and trouble they were likely to entail
upon the young man, by arousing the anger of his father, never gave him
the least uneasiness. He had squandered such large sums of money at the
gambling-houses in Paris, that he dared not show his face at the Hall
until the storm was blown over; and to such a thoughtless, extravagant
being as Alfred Hurdlestone, "sufficient to the day was the evil
thereof."
Without any strikingly vicious propensities, it was impossible for
Algernon Hurdlestone to escape from the contaminating influence of his
uncle, to whom he was strongly attached, without pollution.
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