Page:Lady Anne Granard 1.pdf/139

134 Mrs. Palmer was seated knitting—that comfortable sort of work, which requires so little attention, and so little eyesight. Nothing could be more placid or more benevolent than her countenance—she was a very pretty old woman—and the close, white lace-cap, the dark silk gown, and the mittens, a style of costume she had worn for the last twenty years, seemed as if it had been invented expressly for her. She received Mr. Glentworth with even more than her usual kindness. There is nothing of which women are so susceptible as attention; it is but a slight tribute, yet it is one paramount to secure the heart's allegiance. Now Mrs. Palmer felt that Mr. Glentworth's call was an attention—and such they had hitherto been; but, to-day, it must be confessed, that he called more with reference to himself. Their conversation soon turned, as it always did, on "those dear girls." All the feminine romance—all the warm affection that Mrs. Palmer possessed, turned to her interesting neighbours. Her own daughters-in-law (she never used, nor even thought of, the epithet "in-law") were so comfortably married, lived so exactly from one year's end to another the same sort of life; it was impossible to feel any anxiety about them. But the loveliness, the refinement, and the uncertain position of the young Granards interested at once her fears and her hopes, and both she and Mr Glentworth felt that they had one point in common when they talked over their youthful friends. It was not long before the