From cigar-smoking, which I own to be a reprehensible
practice, he plunged into still deeper and darker dissipation; for I am
sorry to say, he took to pipes and the strongest tobacco, for which there
is no excuse. Our young man was changed. During the last fifteen or
twenty months, the malady had been increasing on him, of which we have
not chosen to describe at length the stages; knowing very well that the
reader (the male reader at least) does not care a fig about other
people's sentimental perplexities, and is not wrapped up heart and soul
in Clive's affairs like his father, whose rest was disturbed if the boy
had a headache, or who would have stripped the coat off his back to keep
his darling's feet warm.
The object of this hopeless passion had, meantime, returned to the
custody of the dark old duenna, from which she had been liberated for a
while. Lady Kew had got her health again, by means of the prescriptions
of some doctors, or by the efficacy of some baths; and was again on foot
and in the world, tramping about in her grim pursuit of pleasure.
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