CHAPTER II.
A far worse shock than her husband's death awaited Lady Anne. It was the arrival of the next heir at Granard Park, and the information that her husband had died totally ruined, while a poor five hundred a year was all that remained for the support of herself and her daughters.
Lady Anne was more eloquent than she had ever before been on the subject of Mr. Granard's imprudence. "What did people mean by having heirs-at-law? Why were she and her children to be impoverished for a stranger?"
She wrote to her brother, Lord Rotheles, expecting that he would set the matter right. This, however, was out of his power—still he did something for her; he assured her of an allowance of five hundred a year, mentioning also that she could stay at Rotheles Castle as long as she pleased.
This Lady Anne resolved to do till his and Lady Rotheles's return. After that it would be impossible, for his lordship had married the woman who had been divorced on his account, and, whatever Lady Anne's other faults might be, she was rigidly correct. Too
