Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/298

296 with every thing material. He said that for many years past the great business of his lordship's life had been, in a quiet manner, to save up a fund from which to portion his nieces; that within the last two years, from the advice and assistance of Sir Edward Hales, he had made purchases which greatly facilitated his plan, and there could be no doubt, that by the time when the youngest attained her majority, about seven thousand pounds would be secured to each;—he had further devised to Helen and Georgiana, in reward for their especial attentions, a division of that personal estate whereby he had secured an income of a thousand a-year to the countess, whose fortune was very trifling (herself and niece being in fact regular watering-place fortune-hunters), but to whom he had bequeathed a third of what the sale of his effects might produce. He had well considered his old servants, various public and private charities, and even the gifts acceptable to good neighbours and friends—in fact, the gay, thoughtless young man, once foremost amongst fashionable sinners and sentimental sufferers, when time and trouble and sickness taught him to think, merged into the man of penitence, justice, and kindness. He became first upright and