And sometimes, as from one dream into another, Fauntleroy looked
forth out of his present grimy environment into that past
magnificence, and wondered whether the grandee of yesterday or the
pauper of to-day were real. But, in my mind, the one and the other
were alike impalpable. In truth, it was Fauntleroy's fatality to
behold whatever he touched dissolve. After a few years, his second
wife (dim shadow that she had always been) faded finally out of the
world, and left Fauntleroy to deal as he might with their pale and
nervous child. And, by this time, among his distant relatives,--with
whom he had grown a weary thought, linked with contagious infamy, and
which they were only too willing to get rid of,--he was himself
supposed to be no more.
The younger child, like his elder one, might be considered as the
true offspring of both parents, and as the reflection of their state.
She was a tremulous little creature, shrinking involuntarily from
all mankind, but in timidity, and no sour repugnance. There was a
lack of human substance in her; it seemed as if, were she to stand up
in a sunbeam, it would pass right through her figure, and trace out
the cracked and dusty window-panes upon the naked floor. But,
nevertheless, the poor child had a heart; and from her mother's
gentle character she had inherited a profound and still capacity of
affection. And so her life was one of love. She bestowed it partly
on her father, but in greater part on an idea.
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