The discovery of her former
frailty would have proved a blow to her respectability,
which he dreaded like death; and it
could not long remain a secret from his wife, that
in consequence of a severe illness in India, even
his reason became occasionally shaken by any thing
which violently agitated his feelings. She had,
therefore, acquiesced in patience and silence in
the course of policy which Mon
ada had devised,
and which her husband anxiously and warmly approved.
Yet her thoughts, even when their marriage
was blessed with other offspring, anxiously
reverted to the banished and outcast child, who
had first been clasped to the maternal bosom.
All these feelings, ``subdued and cherished
long,'' were set afloat in full tide by the unexpected
discovery of this son, redeemed from a lot of
extreme misery, and placed before his mother's
imagination in circumstances so disastrous.
It was in vain that her husband had assured
her that he would secure the young man's prosperity,
by his purse and his interest. She could
not be satisfied, until she had herself done something
to alleviate the doom of banishment to which
her eldest-born was thus condemned. She was
the more eager to do so, as she felt the extreme
delicacy of her health, which was undermined by
so many years of secret suffering.
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