Being naturally of a gloomy and
melancholy temperament, this unfortunate union had rendered his life
almost insupportable. Domestic happiness, to which he had looked forward
with high-wrought anticipations, proved, in his case, to have no
foundation.
He was disappointed. His dream of home and its blessings faded away, and
was supplanted by a terrible reality. He grew more and more melancholy.
But there was a solace, which saved him from absolute misery. Two
children--a boy and a girl--blessed his otherwise unhallowed union. The
education of these children was the only joy his home afforded; but
even this to his misanthropic mind could not compensate for his
matrimonial disappointment.
Years passed away; the son was sent to college, from which, to the
anguish of his father, he was expelled for gross misconduct. The young
man returned to New Orleans, and became one of the most dissolute and
abandoned characters of the city. Dr. Vaudelier disowned him, and sunk
the deeper in his melancholy.
The death of his wife left him alone with his daughter; and if the fatal
influence of past years could have been removed, perhaps he might have
been a happy man.
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