Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/213

Rh many tears being shed, mamma, when we left Granard Park." "Yes, many tears were shed in memory of the last Granard they knew, and, on sight of his five little girls in their black frocks—country people, having few exciting scenes, make the most of them, and, undoubtedly, talk of the handsome widow and her fair children to this day, all stuffed into the family coach, which went a snail's pace, while the elder girls cried, and waved their cambric handkerchiefs, and my lady sank into the corner. That part of the thing had its effect for the moment, but, I tell you again, of all our own domestics who went weeping by our side to the park-gates, of all the crowd that received us on the outside, the men bare-headed, and the women crying, there was not one that had any love for me, and not more than half a dozen that had any pity." Helen thought it was a very odd thing to boast of, yet, certainly, Lady Anne spoke in an exulting tone of voice: for herself, she could only "answer with a sigh," nor was more required, for when her mother had taken breath, she continued:— "Yet there was not one creature in that crowd that would not have obeyed any command I might have willed to issue, because they were accustomed to obey; accustomed to hold the master mind in