means, and would be a source of positive inconvenience; the result of which was, that they were treated with contempt. You may well look aghast, Isabella, but I tell you the tale as told to me by the truly good and upright."
"Well, dear Mary, then my reply is, that at any hazard mamma must be relieved, lest she should be tempted to do any one of the many wrong things you have mentioned. I would rather send her all the money we have; nay, I would sell the trinkets Glentworth has given me, at the risk of his anger, in preference to any disgraceful circumstance occurring to her, much less her consenting to any: but how can we manage it? what can we do?"
"We can only write to Louisa, and promise indemnity to Charles."
"Charles does not like his wife's mother, and has, indeed, no reason; Louisa is like ourselves; she will feel that, let Lady Anne's faults be what they may, she is her mother, and may in her distress say more than she ought; we must not, as they say in the East, 'throw the apple of contention into the dwelling of matrimony.'"
Count Riccardini entered whilst they were concerting ways and means to help their mother, and the kind inquiries he made as to their apparent discomfort, soon drew them to disclose all that was necessary of Helen's letter. He took a warm interest in it, for he well knew how frequently in days of old Mr. Granard
