In his daughter Clara, however,
the gentleness of sex claimed that warmer affection which
was denied to him, who resembled her in almost every
attribute of mind and person. Colonel de Haldimar doated
on his daughter with a tenderness, for which few, who
were familiar with his harsh and unbending nature, ever
gave him credit. She was the image of one on whom all of
love that he had ever known had been centered; and he
had continued in Clara an affection, that seemed in itself
to form a portion, distinct and apart, of his existence.
We have already seen, as stated by Charles de Haldimar
to the unfortunate wife of Halloway, with what little
success he had pleaded in the interview he had requested
of his father, for the preserver of his gallant brother's
life; and we have also seen how equally inefficient was
the lowly and supplicating anguish of that wretched being,
when, on quitting the apartment of his son, Colonel de
Haldimar had so unexpectedly found himself clasped in
her despairing embrace. There was little to be expected
from an intercession on the part of one claiming so little
ascendancy over his father's heart, as the universally
esteemed young officer; still less from one who, in her
shriek of agony, had exposed the haughty chief to the
observation both of men and officers, and under
circumstances that caused his position to border on the
ludicrous.
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