Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/246

244 the tinsel she assumed as the gold for which he had given her credit. The very cunning should never venture to be the very angry. Poor Lady Rotheles was really so imprudent on the late occasion of her niece's elopement as to go into a passion, and to utter such a tirade against her, her lord was roused from his habitual, but not natural listlessness, and became, in consequence, master of sentiments and secrets hitherto most commendably concealed from his cognizance. The former assured him that his discreet lady saw no harm in her niece's conduct save its publicity, which she reprobated as unforgiveable, horrible, damnable; the latter gave him to understand that poor Mary Granard had been completely choused out of her lover by the artful cunning of a woman who despised, whilst she married him, and had for seven long years wasted his property, thwarted his pursuits, ridiculed his attainments, despised his person, and told him how and for what purpose she cajoled him into marriage; a coronet and a fortune being her sole object, save in so far as she had pleasure in thwarting Lady Anne. "But coronet and fortune are now gone for ever. Miss Aubrey penniless will be cast on the world which despises her; perhaps look to her aunt for charity: but no, miscreant, not a shilling, or a loaf, shall you ever have from me! Not if you are