Lady Anne not only for her beauty, but for her quiet manner, which he mistook for gentleness—like many others, he found out his mistake when too late. Shy, sensitive, and indolent, he gave way on every point, because it was less trouble to yield than to oppose. He went to London, though he would have preferred remaining in the country; he gave a grand fête of some description or other every year, though he hated the noise and confusion; he filled his house with company, though his habits were even unsocial: in short, his whole life was one succession of sacrifices, but they were sacrifices without merit—they were the sacrifices of weakness, not of strength. Many a bitter moment did he pass, when, after watching his five fairy girls on the lawn, he would turn away, and think that his death would leave them beggars. There was one sad thought perpetually fretting his heart, and the gay and lovely Lady Anne Granard was often pitied for being united to a man so gloomy and so unsocial.
Mr. Granard became a valetudinarian; he was always applying to some physician or another, perhaps a little to their bewilderment, for no disease was apparent: they knew not that the improvident father feared to die, for the sake of five destitute orphans. In the mean time he grew thin and pale, the result, it was said, of over-attention. "Never," as his wife observed, "did any body take such care of himself as Mr. Granard."
But there was that within which mocked all cure,
