Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/133

 affection for a haughty, dissipated woman, of high birth, but no fortune; this Lady he married: I was sent to a Jesuit's College for education; twice a year I came to see my father, but, alas! how changed, how cold the reception I experienced from the tender endearments I had been accustomed to!—Young as I was, I soon perceived the marked alteration. His Lady looked on me with an invidious eye, and the short periods I was permitted to spend at home, soon became irksome and disagreeable. When I was about fourteen, my tutor one day gave me to understand that it was my father's will that I should dedicate myself to the church.

"I was thunderstruck at this intelligence, for I had other views; my mind was active, my body strong and robust, for my age; I had long entertained a wish to be instructed in military exercises; I wished to go into the army; my father was a man of fortune; he had no children by his Lady; why then was I to be condemned to an unsocial sedentary