Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/7

Rh for Louisa. "Could it be that mamma had refused him?" Nothing was more probable; but, even in that case, it was inexpressible relief to believe she had been sought for, to know that her feelings were indeed reciprocated, that she had not thrown away her young heart's first affections on the insensible, or been deceived in her surmises by the insidious and deceitful. "Oh, no! Arthur was all she had thought him;" in daring to rely on his love and give confiding esteem to his character, more than half her sorrows were overcome, and hope whispered that the rest might be; her eyes became lighted up by the joy of her heart, and her whole frame seemed suddenly renovated. "How strange," whispered Lady Anne to herself; "the girl is already in a consumption; there is the bright eye and the hectic flush of the disease, yet it was never in my family, never! Mary was long weak, but she didn't die, as one expected—it will never do for me to take her here and there, but the Marquis may. Surely, if a newspaper-man in the city could engage a vessel to take his wife to Lisbon for her health, the Marchioness of Wentworthdale might have two. I wish he would come up from the country today, that I might hasten the affair by telling him the disease is actually begun. "Hold! that will not do. No man of family would choose to have a consumptive heir. It is a difficulty to know what view one should adopt; she may drag on for two whole years; in that time her