Page:Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping up Appearances Volume 2.pdf/27

Rh enough to remember how often I have seen the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, about eight in the morning (when I was at Bath in 91 or 92), returning from the parade, where she had sate up the live-long night with her sister, Lady Duncannon; it can therefore be no disgrace to appear as if yon felt for your daughter." "Very fine, sir! I ask the terms on which I am to have the money?" "And I have named them. Your ladyship does dot speak to a money-lender, but a gentleman; fully aware, of course, that you are a woman of rank whom circumstances have laid under obligation to him of a nature never to be cancelled, but which would never have been remembered if your ingratitude had not been mingled with cruelty to your own sweet, unoffending child, in a way unknown to her, and held hitherto in secresy by me, but not therefore forgiven or forgotten. " Mr. Palmer spoke "as one having authority," for he was a tall and handsome man, past the prime, but still in the vigour of autumnal life, and his features, in their impressive character, though generally benevolent and sweet, were now stern and intellectual, conveying the idea that he looked into the very recesses of the heart; and Lady Anne had a heart, small as might be its dimensions, and incrusted as its surface undoubtedly was with pride and selfishness. She had, during the absence of her daughters, actually