minutiae of the buttery, and the larder,
and the very hencoop--they drive me beyond my patience; I would rather
endure the poverty of Wolf's Crag than be pestered with the wealth of
Ravenswood Castle."

"And yet," said Lucy, "it was by attention to these minutiae that my
father acquired the property----"

"Which my ancestors sold for lack of it," replied Ravenswood. "Be it so;
a porter still bears but a burden, though the burden be of gold."

Lucy sighed; she perceived too plainly that her lover held in scorn the
manners and habits of a father to whom she had long looked up as her
best and most partial friend, whose fondness had often consoled her for
her mother's contemptuous harshness.

The lovers soon discovered that they differed upon other and no less
important topics. Religion, the mother of peace, was, in those days of
discord, so much misconstrued and mistaken, that her rules and forms
were the subject of the most opposite opinions and the most hostile
animosities. The Lord Keeper, being a Whig, was, of course, a
Presbyterian, and had found it convenient, at different periods, to
express greater zeal for the kirk than perhaps he really felt. His
family, equally of course, were trained under the same institution.
Ravenswood, as we know, was a High Churchman, or Episcopalian, and
frequently objected to Lucy the fanaticism of some of her own
communion, while she intimated, rather than expressed, horror at the
latitudinarian principles which she had been taught to think connected
with the prelatical form of church government.

Thus, although their mutual affection seemed to increase rather than to
be diminished as their characters opened more fully on each other, the
feelings of each were mingled with some less agreeable ingredients. Lucy
felt a secret awe, amid all her affection for Ravenswood. His soul was
of an higher, prouder character than those with whom she had hitherto
mixed in intercourse; his ideas were more fierce and free; and he
contemned many of the opinions which had been inculcated upon her as
chiefly demanding her veneration. On the other hand, Ravenswood saw in
Lucy a soft and flexible character, which, in his eyes at least, seemed
too susceptible of being moulded to any form by those with whom
she lived. He felt that his own temper required a partner of a more
independent spirit, who could set sail with him on his course of life,
resolved as himself to dare indifferently the storm and the fa