With far more than one man's fair share of adversity to endure,
Isaac had but one consolation to support him, and that was of the
dreariest and most negative kind. He had no wife and children to
increase his anxieties and add to the bitterness of his various
failures in life. It might have been from mere insensibility, or
it might have been from generous unwillingness to involve another
in his own unlucky destiny, but the fact undoubtedly was, that he
had arrived at the middle term of life without marrying, and,
what is much more remarkable, without once exposing himself, from
eighteen to eight-and-thirty, to the genial imputation of ever
having had a sweetheart.
When he was out of service he lived alone with his widowed
mother. Mrs. Scatchard was a woman above the average in her lowly
station as to capacity and manners. She had seen better days, as
the phrase is, but she never referred to them in the presence of
curious visitors; and, though perfectly polite to every one who
approached her, never cultivated any intimacies among her
neighbors. She contrived to provide, hardly enough, for her
simple wants by doing rough work for the tailors, and always
managed to keep a decent home for her son to return to whenever
his ill luck drove him out helpless into the world.
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