Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/278

276 "It can be no other than poor Manuello, who married Margaret Granard; he was known to be a man of family, and Granard was always attached to him; but my sister resented the marriage excessively, forbidding even the names of the parties to be mentioned in her presence—did you, Georgiana, ever hear of them?" "Only from Isabella, who calls him her uncle Riccardini, and says, he is the kindest and best of friends, and, having no relations of his own, adopts my fathers family as such—she says his seat, Castello Riccardini, is one of the most beautiful places in the kingdom of Naples, but he prefers England to his own country." When the first letter arrived respecting Lady Anne's illness, the Countess firmly believed it to be a feint to move her brother's compassion and get money out of him for the expences she must have incurred at Brighton; not doubting that, as her fainting from the heat had been mentioned in the papers, it formed a good groundwork for the getting up a little domestic interlude of the pathetic kind, likely to affect her lord. She had, therefore, great pleasure, in the first instance, in the power of defeating it; but, on re-reading the letter, and finding the sufferer's daughters were there, she addressed a very kind letter to Mrs. Penrhyn, intreating to hear every day, and lamenting the distance between them. The second letter received was from the Count, who thereby showed he thought it necessary they should hear; and the one which followed