Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/101

Rh can have known a care; any one may see she has neither a debt nor a daughter." Our readers will have seen that debts and daughters did not necessarily go together, but it was always Lady Anne's will to class them as part and parcel of each other, without a due regard to either justice or mercy. Count Riccardini was invaluable to the party: he met the trial of the time, not eluded it. As a dweller on the banks of the ocean, he related various accounts of the sufferers by tempest; and in every case where the vessel was seaworthy it eventually overcame its difficulties, and without directly saying "that British men-of-war could not, and did not go down," he yet enabled every one to make a favourable inference; and as it was impossible for the most positive man of the world not to rely on the truth of his stories, even when they clearly saw the end he had in view, so, of course, the artless and upright implicitly believed him, and thankfully accepted the consolations he offered them. These were naturally enhanced by the respect they entertained for his character as a convert to Protestantism; and Mrs. Margaret, who had heard of his open renunciation of the error of his creed, and, on more than one occasion, classed him with those individuals represented in Fox's Martyrs tied to the stake,and holding up their clasped