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I am an only child. My father was the younger son of one of our oldest earls; my mother the dowerless daughter of a Scotch peer. Mr. Pelham was a moderate whig, and gave sumptuous dinners; Lady Frances was a woman of taste, and particularly fond of diamonds and old china.
Nor do we know for certain where she went to. We do not even know her real name, for the name Becfola, "Dowerless" or "Small-dowered," was given to her as a nickname. This only is certain, that she disappeared from the world we know of, and that she went to a realm where even conjecture may not follow her.
"Where, in the loftiest houses of Europe, find a husband worthy of such a prize?" "You forget that I am still an exile, she still dowerless. You forget that I am pursued by Peschiera; that I would rather see her a beggar's wife than Pah, the very thought maddens me, it is so foul. Corpo di Bacco! I have been glad to find her a husband already." "Already! Then that young man spoke truly?"
What will do for one is good enough for the other, and Kate may be angry and get over it, for not one rag of it all will she get, nor a penny of my money will ever go to her again. She is no daughter of mine from henceforth. That rascal has beaten me and stolen my daughter, but he gets a dowerless lass.
He could gratify his revenge by leaving his daughter penniless, and thus De Soto, if he continued faithful, would be compelled to receive to his arms a dowerless bride; and a miserable superstition taught him that he could thus bribe God to throw open to him the gates of paradise.
There, aided by nuns, she cared for and educated two hundred and fifty pupils, dowerless daughters of impoverished nobles. It was "the veritable offspring of her who was never a daughter, a wife, nor a mother."
While a dowerless maiden still has a much better chance of securing a husband in a land where maidens are few and bachelors are many, yet the day has long gone by when every spinster who had drawn a blank in England could be shipped off to India with the certainty of finding a spouse there. Frequent leave and fast steamers have altered that.
'I have very little doubt it was so though I wasn't old enough when he died to hear as much from his own lips. My father went straight from the University to Vienna, where he began his career in the diplomatic service, and where he soon afterwards married a dowerless English girl of good family.
The dowerless bride is regarded with coldness; the bride with a past is anathema; there is no road back, at least in the opinion of those who have sub-edited their religion in the interests of propriety. Jimmy had no difficulty in finding a substitute to take on his work at the Record office, especially when he made it known that there was going to be a vacancy on the staff immediately.
Madame de la Tour had moments of uneasiness during her daughter's childhood; sometimes she used to say to me: "If I should die what would become of Virginia, dowerless as she is?" She had an aunt in France, a woman of quality, rich, old, and a devotee, to whom she had written at the time of Virginia's birth. Not until 1746 eleven years later did a reply reach her.
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