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But still sadder for Mary was the fact that Fanny, in addition to domestic grievances, was tortured by the unkindness of an uncertain lover. She had met, not long before, Mr. Hugh Skeys, a young but already successful merchant. Attracted by her, he had been sufficiently attentive and devoted to warrant her conclusion that his intentions were serious.
The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind of her friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to which I have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek a softer climate, but she had no funds to defray the expence of such an undertaking. At this time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident in the kingdom of Portugal, paid his addresses to her.
Mary's love for Fanny made her much more sensitive to Mr. Skeys' shortcomings as a lover than Fanny had been. Shortly after the marriage she wrote indignantly to George: "Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry sooner.
Arrived there just in time to see her friend die, she remained but a short time after all was over. There was no inducement for her to make a longer stay. Her feelings for Mr. Skeys were not friendly. She could not forget that had he but treated Fanny as she, for example, would have done had she been in his place, this early death might have been prevented. Her school, intrusted to Mrs.
Fanny expressed a wish to have Mary with her during her confinement. The latter, with characteristic unselfishness, consented, when Mr. Skeys asked her to go to Lisbon, though in so doing she was obliged to leave school and house. This shows the sincerity of her opinion that before true passion everything but duty moves.
The Honorable Andrew William Cochran, an accomplished scholar, was its President. The Skeys, the Badgleys, the Fishers, the Sewells, the Vallières, the Stuarts, the Blacks, the Sheppards, the Morrins, the Doluglasses, the Reverend Dr. Cook, the Bishops Mountain, the Greens, the Faribaults, and indeed all the men of learning and note in the country were associated with it. But it is decaying.
Fanny's health had finally become so wretched that even her uncertain lover was moved to pity. Mr. Skeys seems to have been one of the men who only appreciate that which they think they cannot have. Not until the ill-health of the woman he loved warned him of the possibility of his losing her altogether did he make definite proposals to her.
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