Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/91

Rh deep solicitude, fruitless argument, tender reproach, false hopes, hours of joy and years of sorrow, have occupied folios. It would have gone far to destroy life and unsettle reason, in the weaker one, if she had not been sustained by the cheerful love of her father, and occupied by her mother, with the unceasing ceremonies and amusing pageants of her religion. To Glentworth business supplied the necessary panacea; he was too upright to neglect that which involved the welfare of others: and he found the cares of the lover suspended or forgotten in the cares of the merchant, and the circumstance of continually shifting the scene compelled him to take "thought for the morrow," and by that means elude the pressure of the present. He was, in fact, much better for being completely cut off from hope and left to shape his course as circumstances might direct, wisely determining never to trust himself again in Italy, and having, as desired, returned the letters of Signora Riccardini, received and burnt his own. He trusted his heart would hence forward be as free as his person. It so happened that he heard of the marriage of Margarita at the same time that he was summoned to England to take possession of his uncle's fortune; therefore, the cares of wealth devolved upon him at the very period when it became his duty to bid a still farther and an eternal adieu to every remaining care and thought of love; and, as he had arrived at that season of life when the "episodes" love causes to man generally subside, he