the Marquis of A---- had as sincere intentions
towards the public as himself or any man; and if, upon a conference,
they could have agreed upon the measures by which it was to be pursued,
his experience and his interest should have gone to support the present
administration. Upon the engagement betwixt Ravenswood and his daughter,
he spoke in a dry and confused manner. He regretted so premature a
step as the engagement of the young people should have been taken, and
conjured the Master to remember he had never given any encouragement
thereunto; and observed that, as a transaction inter minores, and
without concurrence of his daughter's natural curators, the engagement
was inept, and void in law. This precipitate measure, he added, had
produced a very bad effect upon Lady Ashton's mind, which it was
impossible at present to remove. Her son, Colonel Douglas Ashton, had
embraced her prejudices in the fullest extent, and it was impossible for
Sir William to adopt a course disagreeable to them without a fatal and
irreconcilable breach in his family; which was not at present to be
thought of. Time, the great physician, he hoped, would mend all.

In a postscript, Sir William said something more explicitly, which
seemed to intimate that, rather than the law of Scotland should sustain
a severe wound through his sides, by a reversal of the judgment of her
supreme courts, in the case of the barony of Ravenswood, through the
intervention of what, with all submission, he must term a foreign court
of appeal, he himself would extrajudically consent to considerable
sacrifices.

From Lucy Ashton, by some unknown conveyance, the Master received the
following lines: "I received yours, but it was at the utmost risk; do
not attempt to write again till better times. I am sore beset, but I
will be true to my word, while the exercise of my reason is vouchsafed
to me. That you are happy and prosperous is some consolation, and my
situation requires it all." The note was signed "L.A."

This letter filled Ravenswood with the most lively alarm. He made many
attempts, notwithstanding her prohibition, to convey letters to Miss
Ashton, and even to obtain an interview; but his plans were frustrated,
and he had only the mortification to learn that anxious and effectual
precautions had been taken to prevent the possibility of their
correspondence. The Master was the more distressed by these
circumstances, as it became impossible to delay his departure