Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/96

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LADY ANNE GRANARD.

nature to learn the actual amount of the Count's income, but she never failed to be baffled—it was hard for her endeavours of any kind to be thus eluded by a man who usually held his heart and his history in his hand for any one to read, but yet every trial she made to this end was sure to be foiled, and she was always compelled to recur to the truth of her own assertion to her daughters, "the Count is a very odd man, but he is no fool."

The evening of the second day after this occurred, he again visited her with every mark of pleasure in his countenance, but he said nothing on what was uppermost, until Lady Anne, by a gracious nod, told her daughters they might go, when, taking a canvas bag from his pocket, he emptied its contents on the table, saying, "Here is the money for doctare, all in gold, as I say: seventy-three pounds ten. I sell my horse for one hundred, and my expence is ten. With a little more put to the remainder, I treat myself to Paris for kiss my Bambino, and welcome the bride and Glentworth, and dear Margarita, (so like her angil cousine). Oh! I must see them, my heart have no peace till it see."

Nothing could be more satisfactory than this declaration to Lady Anne; she almost felt capable of giving him five sovereigns of his own money to help his journey, so willing was she that he should