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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. 1825 Excerpt: ... faint and tuneless voice--all told the melancholy tale of enfeebled strength, and foreboded a. speedy separation of the soul from its frail tenement. The General explained the object of his interview, as briefly as possible. "I have not been an unconcerned spectator," said the Lady Dowager, " of the attentions of Sir Ludowic Kennedy to my daughter; and it was owing to the courtesy he was entitled to, at my hands, and the sense of honour which I knew belonged to his nature, as well as the esteem I bore him, that I did not, ere now, warn him of the danger of misplacing his affections--ours is a fallen house, Sir Pettigrew." "My nephew's affections direct him to court an honourable alliance; and his rank, my Lady, ""I doubt it not," interrupted her Ladyship, "and, for that reason, it pains me the more to restrain them. Know'st thou not Sir Pettigrew, that Mary Macdonnell is a dowerless orphan, who, at my demise, will have no other independency than the savings of a few years of her mother's jointure? Alas! she is no bride for an earthly affiance--she is the first, and, I pray Heaven she may be the last, of our house, whom penury, more.than piety, hath trained for religious retirement! It grieves me much, Sir Pettigrew Malverne, to be impelled to restrict the free choice of my child; and not a little to return so uncourteous a denial to your nephew; but it can never be with my approval, that Mary Macdonnell should become a dependant on her brother Louis, or unite her fate with one whose happier fortune would only remind her the more bitterly, in after years, of her own and her family's degradation." The old General did not see the force of these nice distinctions, which her Ladyship pourtrayed, as to the dispar...