Gradually, however, the Baron fancied that he
detected in the boy a capacity for better things; his condescending
feeling of protection had grown into an attachment for the
handsome, amiable, grateful young fellow, and he placed him in the
gymnasium at Breslau, perhaps with the idea, now, of educating him
to be an intelligent companion.
The boy and his humble relatives, dazzled by this opportunity,
began secretly to consider the favor as almost equivalent to his
adoption as a son. (The Baron had once been married, but his wife
and only child had long been dead.) The old man, of course, came
to look upon the growing intelligence of the youth as his own work:
vanity and affection became inextricably blended in his heart, and
when the cursus was over, he took him home as the companion of
his lonely life. After two or three years, during which the young
man was acquiring habits of idleness and indulgence, supposing his
future secure, the Baron died,--perhaps too suddenly to make full
provision for him, perhaps after having kept up the appearance of
wealth on a life-annuity, but, in any case, leaving very little, if
any, property to Otto.
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