Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/54

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52
LADY ANNE GRANARD.

literally, and grieved that he had not procured an English physician. She had not seen the expression which alarmed her sister, and would have been the source of equal sorrow and solicitude, vain conjecture, and rejected pity, to herself; it was therefore well for her to escape it. There was sufficient mortification in finding that several hours elapsed before her husband joined them, which, after five days' absence, could not fail to be painful: if he were not interested in her pursuits, yet he well knew how much she was in his; "had he nothing to communicate, who had been visitsing imperial Rome?"

It appeared he had not, for the evening passed in silence, save when Glentworth said, that "on the following day they would leave Pisa, as a vessel would put in at Leghorn in the evening." When Isabella recollected the trouble she used to have in preparing for a removal to Brighton, she could not help contrasting her situation then with that she held now, when the most material changes called for no personal exertion, and abundance of handsome apparel, suitable for every place and every want, were always at hand, and her heart swelled with gratitude not less than love. But when she turned her glistening eyes on him who had bestowed so much, his look of care and absence told her to keep silence, "though it was pain and grief" to her, lest she should intrude on the treasured reverie, and convert his sorrow into anger, his coldness into contempt.