son lived at Naples, and had several children, but maintained no
connection either with his parent or his native country. On the other
hand, Lord Monmouth hated his younger son, who had married, against his
consent, a woman to whom that son was devoted. A system of domestic
persecution, sustained by the hand of a master, had eventually broken up
the health of its victim, who died of a fever in a foreign country, where
he had sought some refuge from his creditors.

His widow returned to England with her child; and, not having a relation,
and scarcely an acquaintance in the world, made an appeal to her husband's
father, the wealthiest noble in England and a man who was often prodigal,
and occasionally generous. After some time, and more trouble, after urgent
and repeated, and what would have seemed heart-rending, solicitations, the
attorney of Lord Monmouth called upon the widow of his client's son, and
informed her of his Lordship's decision. Provided she gave up her child,
and permanently resided in one of the remotest counties, he was authorised
to make her, in four quarterly payments, the yearly allowance of three
hundred pounds, that being the income that Lord Monmouth, who was the
shrewdest accountant in the country, had calculated a lone woman might
very decently exist upon in a small market town in the county of
Westmoreland.

Desperate necessity, the sense of her own forlornness, the utter
impossibility to struggle with an omnipotent foe, who, her husband had
taught her, was above all scruples, prejudices, and fears, and who, though
he respected law, despised opinion, made the victim yield. But her
sufferings were not long; the separation from her child, the bleak clime,
the strange faces around her, sharp memory, and the dull routine of an
unimpassioned life, all combined to wear out a constitution originally
frail, and since shattered by many sorrows. Mrs. Coningsby died the same