Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 2).djvu/161

 You forget that I have now passed fourteen years in Spain, disavowed by my husband's family, and existing upon a stipend barely sufficient for the support and education of my daughter. Nay, I have even been neglected by most of my own relations, who out of envy affect to doubt the reality of my marriage. My allowance being discontinued at my father-in-law's death, I was reduced to the very brink of want. In this situation I was found by my sister, who, amongst all her foibles, possesses a warm, generous, and affectionate heart. She aided me with the little fortune which my father left her, persuaded me to visit Madrid, and has supported my child and myself since our quitting Murcia. Then, consider not Antonia as descended from the Condé de las Cisternas; consider her as a poor and unprotected orphan, as the grand-child of the tradesman Torribio Dalfa, as the needy pensioner of that tradesman's daughter. Reflect upon the difference between such a situation and that of the nephew and heir of the potent