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218 description. It was perfectly plain, that fast and far as scandal flies, Lady Anne's words, when derogatory to the Count, and that beloved wife, for whose sake they would have been most resented, had never reached their retreat in Devonshire, much less followed them to distant Italy. She had always treated him with distinction personally, and had never seen him since his marriage with Margaret Granard, which was certainly a fault she had punished severely, without, perhaps, examining, as she ought to have done, how far it was one. At this time, she was perfectly willing to retract all she had said about "buying the fellow a monkey and a dulcimer," to the amusement of her friends and the mortification of her husband. "It is by no means wise to be witty and malicious," said Lady Anne, "for we little know whom we may have occasion for as we travel through life; a pauper emigrant has discharged my debts; the brother of that young sailor taken my house, and paid for it beforehand, and helped Riccardini to carry me out with the care and kindness of a son: how the people must have looked at beholding two such men, carrying such a woman as me, though apparently lifeless." Lady Anne, at that moment, unquestionably realized the feelings of her whom Pope has immortalized, when she exclaimed,