Chapter 26

Although the affections of Jane had sustained a blow, her pride had
received a greater, and no persuasions of her mother or sister could
induce her to leave her room. She talked little, but once or twice she
yielded to the affectionate attentions of Emily, and poured out her
sorrows into the bosom of her sister. At such moments she would declare
her intention of never appearing in the world again. One of these
paroxysms of sorrow was witnessed by her mother, and, for the first time,
self-reproach mingled in the grief of the matron. Had she trusted less to
appearances and to the opinions of indifferent and ill-judging
acquaintances, her daughter might have been apprized in season of the
character of the man who had stolen her affections. To a direct exhibition
of misery Lady Moseley was always sensible, and, for the moment, she
became alive to its causes and consequences; but a timely and judicious
safeguard against future moral evils was a forecast neither her inactivity
of mind nor abilities were equal to.

We shall leave Jane to brood over her lover's misconduct, while we regret
she is without the consolation alone able to bear her up against the
misfortunes of life, and return to the other personages of our history.

The visit to Mrs. Fitzgerald had been postponed in consequence of Jane's
indisposition; but a week after the colonel's departure, Mrs. Wilson
thought, as Jane had consented to leave her room, and Emily really began
to look pale from her confinement by the side of a sick bed, she would
redeem the pledge she had given the recluse on the following morning. They
found the ladies at the cottage happy to see them, and anxious to hear of
the health of Jane, of whose illness they had been informed by note. After
offering her guests some refreshments, Mrs. Fitzgerald, who appeared
laboring under a greater melancholy than usual, proceeded to make them
acquainted with the incidents of her life.

The daughter of an English merchant at Lisbon had fled from the house of
her father to the protection of an Irish officer in the service of his
Catholic Majesty: they were united, and the colonel immediately took his
bride to Madrid. The offspring of this union were a son and daughter. The
former, at an early age, had entered into the service of his king, and
had, as usual, been bred in the faith of his ancestors; but the Señora
McCarthy had been educated, and yet remained a Protestant, and, contrary
to her faith to her husband, secretly instructed her daughter in the same
belief. At the age of seventeen, a principal grandee of the court of
Charles sought the hand of the general's child. The Conde d'Alzada was a
match not to be refused, and they were united in the heartless and formal
manner in which