LADY ANNA. by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. In Two Volumes. VOL. I. London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 1874. [All rights reserved.] London: Printed by Virtue and Co., City Road. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL. II. THE EARL'S WILL. III. LADY ANNA. IV. THE TAILOR OF KESWICK. V. THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL MAKES A PROPOSITION. VI. YOXHAM RECTORY. VII. THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL PERSEVERES. VIII. IMPOSSIBLE! IX. IT ISN'T LAW. X. THE FIRST INTERVIEW. XI. IT IS TOO LATE. XII. HAVE THEY SURRENDERED? XIII. NEW FRIENDS. XIV. THE EARL ARRIVES. XV. WHARFEDALE. XVI. FOR EVER. XVII. THE JOURNEY HOME. XVIII. TOO HEAVY FOR SECRETS. XIX. LADY ANNA RETURNS TO LONDON. XX. LADY ANNA'S RECEPTION. XXI. DANIEL AND THE LAWYER. XXII. THERE IS A GULF FIXED. XXIII. BEDFORD SQUARE. XXIV. THE DOG IN THE MANGER. LADY ANNA. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL. Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,--a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,--on the 1st of June, 181--. That her marriage was valid according to all the forms of the Church, if Lord Lovel were then capable of marrying, no one ever doubted; nor did the Earl ever allege that it was not so. Lovel Grange is a small house, surrounded by a small domain,--small as being the residence of a rich nobleman, lying among the mountains which separate Cumberland from Westmoreland, about ten miles from Keswick, very lovely, from the brightness of its own green sward and the luxuriance of its wild woodland, from the contiguity of overhanging mountains, and from the beauty of Lovel Tarn, a small lake belonging to the property, studded with little islands, each of which is covered with its own thicket of hollies, birch, and dwarfed oaks. The house itself is poor, ill built, with straggling passages and low rooms, and is a sombre, ill-omened looking place. When Josephine Murray was brought there as a bride she thought it to be very sombre and ill-omened; but she loved the lakes and mountains, and dreamed of some vague mysterious joy of life which was to come to her from the wildness of her domicile.