THE DEADLY AFFINITY.
A STORY IN THREE CHAPTERS.
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CHAPTER I. SUNSHINE.
I was an only son, and my parents died when I was very young—too young, indeed, to remember them, and I was placed under the guardianship of my uncle, Mark Haughton,—Squire Haughton, as the neighbours round about Haughton Tower used to call him; and Uncle Mark, as he was always known to me.
Haughton Tower—a large, square, battlemented country-house, was situated among deep woods in the north of Yorkshire, and the family of the Haughtons had lived there for many generations. My father and his brother Mark had been brought up together, and they had always been warmly attached to one another. When my father died, the affection of my uncle seemed to be wholly transferred to me. He was an old bachelor, but he treated me exactly as if I had been his son. But still to me, calling up the recollection of my early years, his memory seems less associated with the idea of a parent, than that of a gentle companion and a loving friend. He seemed never happy unless I was by his side, and until I was sixteen years of age, he superintended my physical and mental education himself. He was very fond of field sports, and whether shooting, fishing, or hunting, I was always with him. He was, moreover, tolerably versed in classics and mathematics, which we read and studied together; but his chief delight, within doors, was science, especially natural philosophy and chemistry. It is from this fact that I trace that deep love for science which has been, I may almost say, the ruling passion of my life.
Very few of the neighbours visited at Haughton Tower, and when my uncle went to any of the