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Fatherless Fanny, Or A Young Lady's First Entrance Into Life
Fatherless Fanny Or A Young Lady's First Entrance Into Life Author:Clara Reeve Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. A Long Story. IVly father,' said Lady Ellincourt, 'was, you know, the Marquis of Petersfield ; but at the time of his coming to age, there was ... more »very little prohahility of his ever attaining to that dignity, as he was only a very distant branch of the Trentham family, and no less than thirteen living claimants, besides the chance of their having children, stood between him and the title; yet such is the mutability of all human tenures, thai, notwithstanding these opposing obstacles, my father became Marquis of Petersfield by the time he was eight.and-thirty. He was then a widower, with two children— my dear lamented brother and myself. Happy would it have been for us had he never been induced to re.enter the pale of wedlock! My father had doled on my mother, and he transferred his affections to her children, when she was borne from him by a premature death. Never was a fonder parent, a more indulgent friend, than he always approved himself to us, whilst we were so happy as to share his love between us. 'My brother was nearly three years older than I was, and the most perfect friendship existed between us from the first dawn of reason. My beloved Seymour'was of so sweet a disposition that he made it his study to render me happy ; and the little superiority he had over me, in point of age, rendered him at once my instructor and playmate. At the time of my father's second marriage, I had just attained my fourteenth year, and Seymour was seventeen. ' The lady selected for our mother-in.law was every way my father's inferior, both as to rank and fortune; being merely the daughter of a suhaltern officer, who had been educated as half- boarder at a school of repute, and from thence attained to the employment of governess to two overgrown girls of fashion, whose ill....« less