Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/311

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LADY ANNE GRANARD.
309

main is every thing, as I told him indirectly—had I been more explicit, I should have been called a manœuvring mamma, or something of that kind."

"Nevertheless, it is surely the proper, that he should consider very serious, if he will be happy and make happy the girl he marry, and whom it is his duty so to guide that she will take the way to Heaven when he leave her on earth."

"Way to Heaven!—what, in the name of wonder, has Heaven to do with it?—if he makes a young, unportioned woman a marchioness, he has done very handsomely by her; she ought to be grateful, and expect nothing more—really the world is in a most unaccountable way. You turn protestant, when there is nothing in the world to be got by it, and he—"

"Pardon me! there is personal freedom, which is worth more than political freedom—freedom from penances and fastings; from pilgrimages and hair-shirts; freedom to read the Bible—most glorious of all gifts."

"Georgiana, play that sweet sonata the Count sings so delightfully (the poor man is really very near gone—I wonder if Finch could take him at my recommendation? I fear not)—do sing, dear Count—Georgiana's taste is quite equal to Helen's."

The Count approached the instrument mechanically, internally observing, "her illness have destroy her faculties, poor thing; she cannot think on one thing serious: her mind is fatuitous, poor lady."

The performers were soon wrapt and absorbed in