Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/212

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210
LADY ANNE GRANARD.

its value, by the respect paid to her letters, and the hospitable manner in which her family had been received in the neighbourhood where she had reigned for years a queen, at once dazzling and commanding.

"Yes. yes, it is all very right," she observed to Helen, to whom alone she disclosed what was really passing in her mind; "every one of the half dozen letters are quite satisfactory, for, the writers, as Hamlet says, are 'tolerably honest,' and will help my son Glentworth heart and hand, but, certainly, not from love of me. I don't believe, Helen, in all that great county, from its people of rank, down to its cowherds and artisans, one human being had the feeling for me generally distinguished as love, the same kind of attachment the Palmers feel for you, and which, in point of fact, is a very silly affair. A quarrel may break such a tie in a moment, absence will wear it out, and misconduct ruin it. Look at the different effect my mode of impressing my acquaintance made on them, how much more useful and lasting? Admiration and fear, respect for my rank, my talent, and my taste, were the engines by which I drilled them for my own purposes, whilst amongst them, and knowing that not one loved me, I escaped all pain in leaving them, and——."

"Pardon me, little as I was, I remember many,