Page:Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping up Appearances Volume 2.pdf/51

Rh dread a rival on earth, and therefore become subject to jealousy, which would render heaven itself a hell, more especially to one so altogether absorbed in her husband as Isabella. At times Mary thought it not improbable that Glentworth, if he accounted at all for the evident weight on his spirits, the silence and abstraction which they were unable to shake from their own manners under his infliction, would speak to her in preference to one so young as her sister, and so situated as to her health and her expectations. She remembered her mother once saying, in a tone of anxiety, about the time of their marriage, "surely Isabella will have children, for Glentworth always loved them about him; besides, every rich man wants heirs;" and these words had, for some months, in which there was no likelihood of such a circumstance, given her a little uneasiness, and induced her to suppose her brother-in-law anxious on the subject; but, although particularly desirous that his wife should have all possible medical advice and indulgence, she never had perceived that the prospect gave him pleasure. A few words of Charles Penrhyn's, added to his wife's letter, conveyed a far warmer sense of joy in the circumstance, and of grateful love and tenderness to Louisa, than any thing which had fallen thus far from the lips of the rich and generous Glentworth. This was the more remarkable, because he was a man of acute sensibility, not devoid of family pride, and accustomed to speak of certain purchases and estates