Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/80

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
78
LADY ANNE GRANARD.

mulations, thereby entailing upon them not a single legacy for friendship or charity, he would undoubtedly have used every argument against his going abroad, in the natural hope that his pretty Mary, or the blooming Louisa, would become the wife of one dear to him already as a son. This he did not believe, and as Glentworth was taken into the house on the express condition that he should travel, whenever the elder parties demanded this mode of exertion, Mr. Granard said not a word on the subject, though he felt at the time that to him the parting would be a certain shortening of the term, already short. He gave him letters to his sister, speaking of him in the highest terms of affection, and insured him a home at the Castella Riccardini, whenever his pleasure or his avocations called him into its vicinity.

Glentworth's home, as the representative of his house, was Marseilles, and his first journeys were taken in France and a part of Spain, so that at least a year had passed before he made his appearance at a place where he had been long expected, and was received as an especial friend. He was astonished to find Margarita, of whom her uncle had spoken as a mere child, and who in fact was three years younger than Mary, much more womanly than that northern flower had been when he left England, and much handsomer, to his conception, than all the combined beauties of her cousins could have made her; yet even then he observed to himself, "if Isabella lives, she will be very like her beautiful cousin some time."