In such a position no one could be a better friend than Lady
Cantrip, and Mrs Finn had already almost made up her mind that,
should Lady Cantrip occupy the place, she would tell her ladyship
all that had passed between herself and the Duchess on the
subject.
Of what hopes she might have, or what fears, about her girl, the
Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed
that the things of the world were fading away from her, and when
he was sitting by her bedside,--dumb, because at such a moment he
knew not how to express the tenderness of his heart,--holding her
hand, and trying so to listen to her words, that he might collect
and remember every wish, she had murmured something about the
ultimate division of the great wealth with which she herself had
been endowed. She had never, she said, even tried to remember what
arrangements had been made by lawyers, but she hoped that Mary
might be so circumstanced, that if her happiness depended on
marrying a poor man, want of money need not prevent it. The Duke
suspecting nothing, believing this to be a not unnatural question
expression of maternal interest, had assured her that Mary's
fortune would be ample.
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