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on Sundays, a silence that was agreeable to his ear, and a
gloom that he found comfortable.
Mrs. Nicholson had died about thirty, and left him with three
children: a daughter two years, and a son about eight years
younger than John; and John himself, the unlucky bearer of a
name infamous in English history. The daughter, Maria, was a
good girl - dutiful, pious, dull, but so easily startled that
to speak to her was quite a perilous enterprise. 'I don't
think I care to talk about that, if you please,' she would
say, and strike the boldest speechless by her unmistakable
pain; this upon all topics - dress, pleasure, morality,
politics, in which the formula was changed to 'my papa thinks
otherwise,' and even religion, unless it was approached with
a particular whining tone of voice. Alexander, the younger
brother, was sickly, clever, fond of books and drawing, and
full of satirical remarks. In the midst of these, imagine
that natural, clumsy, unintelligent, and mirthful animal,
John; mighty well-behaved in comparison with other lads,
although not up to the mark of the house in Randolph
Crescent; full of a sort of blundering affection, full of
caresses, which were never very warmly received; full of
sudden and loud laughter which rang out in that still house
like curses. Mr. Nicholson himself had a great fund of
humour, of the Scots order - intellectual, turning on the
observation of men; his own character, for instance - if he
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