Constance Volume 1; A Novel (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1785 Excerpt: ...nor was the concern of her friend, less: Constance's loss was certainly the greater, as she must be totally deprived of all the advantage she had derived from her society, without any compensation: in Adelaide slie had found a friend to whom site could and did communicate every circumstance of her situation; ever ready to hear her complaints, to rejoice in her pleasures, and alleviate her mortisications; when she was gone her life was comparatively solitary, she had no one to whom she could speak unreservedly, whose advice she could always ask and trust; no one in whose conversation she could forget the vexations of the day. Mrs. Stavenell, however attached to her niece, was not a person on whose judgment she could rely, nor was she capable of affording, to a mind like Constance's, any intellectual satissaction: Lady Maria's friendship she had experienced, but the fear of Lord Farnford prevented such an intimacy as they both wished: she hardly ever called on his sisters without feeing-him, and though there was nothing in.his beh.iviour at which she could reasonably be offended, ihe was convinced that a very little relaxation of the restraint she assumed towards him would encourage him, and she had too much reason to believe that should her suspicions of Lord Reycolm be either known or consirmed," she would be subjected to all the importunity she had for some time repressed, which aided by Mrs. Stavenell's partiality for Lord Farnford, would, if Lord Reycolm should avow a a change of sentiment, oblige her to return to Marstonbury. About the time when she expected him in town, she received letters from Sir Edward and Lady Barbara Fitzarthur, by which she learnt that he had been with them, and that every thing respecting the intended marriage was agreed o...