Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/87

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LADY ANNE GRANARD.
85

in your's; when you leave me I should die, but for a constant correspondence, by which your heart may be moved to give all possible attention to the truths I may be inspired to lay before you—or, if your judgment refuse conviction, your love will be led into farther compliance; it is only when divided that each party will be able to consider how far we are able to live without the other, and what sacrifices each can make for the other—in six months mamma may be more yielding, and papa allows for me so much, in fact, loves you so well, that, be assured, he would not give me to a prince by compulsion."

The letters of Margarita were all that the fondest lover could desire, the eye of a poet linger on, but they did not contain the casuistry which could lead Glentworth to renounce a faith which he had now been led to examine in a manner he had certainly never done before. He was become so completely in love, and the pains of absence were so great, that he entirely overlooked the certainty that his marriage with a Catholic would occasion his uncle to renounce him, and would be a source of sincere sorrow to his friend Granard, though his niece was the object of his choice; but he could not fail to know that a man should think long and feel strongly before he openly renounced the religion of his country for one which closed to him many of the rights and much of the freedom it was that country's especial pride to bestow. He did not choose to abandon the position in which he stood, without seeing what it was—often had he admired