Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/55

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LADY ANNE GRANARD.
53

letters and invitations from Lady Osmond and her married daughters; but I cannot learn that the feelings of Sir Henry are altered towards me, even after the long period in which I have proved myself a loving, prudent, and generous wife; therefore, I shall never stoop to solicit his suffrage, or reason with his prejudice. Knowing that in Italy Mr. Glentworth travelled much, I have pleased myself often, since my arrival, with romantic hopes of seeing him (unseen myself); but I have never dared to pronounce his name, until your declaration gave me permission, by shewing that my remorseless enemy was in the grave; and, to my great relief, had gone thither without disinheriting him.

"By this time he may have returned to you; God grant him the health for which he sought at such an expence, as that of quitting you and your fair boy, who I have seen and kissed repeatedly, little thinking it shared my blood, but fancying (as women do fancy, that it resembled my own.) No human being but one, who is legally akin to none, who is disowned by all, and whose heart glows with all the sweetest affections of our common nature, can know the mingled and distressing emotions of a creature so situated—the indignation of one hour, the utter prostration of the next—the agony that recoils from a parent's shame, the burning love, the weeping tenderness, clinging to that parent, as by a tenfold