great relief to the countess, who behaved with much kindness to her."
"Poor Rotheles!" exclaimed Lady Anne; "it is just like him to take things so violently; he ought to have remembered that he has been subject to gout the last seven years." As she pronounced these words, her lips quivered, and tears gathered in her eyes, which by degrees rolled slowly down her cheeks.
"I never shall forget," said Louisa, "how kind my uncle was when he called in Welbeck Street to see us after we had had the fever; but, indeed, he always had a very tender heart—very!"
Lady Anne instantly rallied, drew up her attenuated form, and in a sharp voice, not a little querulous, said sneeringly—
"'A very tender heart!' Pray, Mrs. Penrhyn, what is the use of a tender heart?"
Louisa was taken aback; she said "She did not exactly believe she could name its uses; but she always loved people who possessed it."
"And your love is precisely of the same value as your uncle's tenderness. Had he possessed a good heart instead of a tender one, he would have sent me some money; commend me to the hand that gives, rather than the sensibility that weeps."
Louisa could not help a flush of generous anger that lighted up her beautiful face, and formed a strong contrast to Lady Anne's pale one, as she replied, "Surely, dear mamma, Lord Rotheles has never yet
