Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/34

32 was a sister, unknown and of course unowned, my own wretched self. "Mrs. Glentworth sickened and died within two years of her husband's flight to Pisa, where I was born, about seven or eight months after the elopement, and I understand, that Lord Rotheles took some steps to recover me, (believing I was his child,) but ineffectually, which I am glad of, for I am in fact decidedly like the Glentworths. My mother (who had been married extremely young,) never quite recovered a severe cold, caught at the time of my birth, was advised to remain in Italy, yet frequently to change the air, and my father devoted himself entirely to her, with the tenderness of a parent, not less than the devotedness of a lover: they passed under the name of Delamaine. Lord Rotheles procured, from his prosecution, a sum of money, which he gave to the county hospital, and a divorce; he refused to have any thing to do with my mother's fortune, which was still in the hands of her guardians, who had a right to retain it till she was twenty-three, and entertaining a very bad opinion of my father, they refused consent to her marriage with him, after the death of his amiable lady permitted him to offer it; before the time came when she might have been a bride, she was herself a corpse; so nearly did she live to complete a long minority, that it was supposed