y terror.

Some arrangements about his horse and baggage formed the pretext for
his sudden retreat, in which he persevered, although Lady Ashton gave
Lockhard orders to be careful most particularly to accommodate Captain
Craigengelt with all the attendance which he could possibly require. The
Marquis and the Master of Ravenswood were thus left to communicate to
each other their remarks upon the reception which they had met with,
while Lady Ashton led the way, and her lord followed somewhat like a
condemned criminal, to her ladyship's dressing-room.

So soon as the spouses had both entered, her ladyship gave way to that
fierce audacity of temper which she had with difficulty suppressed, out
of respect to appearances. She shut the door behind the alarmed Lord
Keeper, took the key out of the spring-lock, and with a countenance
which years had not bereft of its haughty charms, and eyes which spoke
at once resolution and resentment, she addressed her astounded husband
in these words: "My lord, I am not greatly surprised at the connexions
you have been pleased to form during my absence, they are entirely in
conformity with your birth and breeding; and if I did expect anything
else, I heartily own my error, and that I merit, by having done so, the
disappointment you had prepared for me."

"My dear Lady Ashton--my dear Eleanor [Margaret]," said the Lord Keeper,
"listen to reason for a moment, and I will convince you I have acted
with all the regard due to the dignity, as well as the interest, of my
family."

"To the interest of YOUR family I conceive you perfectly capable of
attending," returned the indignant lady, "and even to the dignity of
your own family also, as far as it requires any looking after. But as
mine happens to be inextricably involved with it, you will excuse me if
I choose to give my own attention so far as that is concerned."

"What would you have, Lady Ashton?" said the husband. "What is it that
displeases you? Why is it that, on your return after so long an absence,
I am arraigned in this manner?" "Ask your own conscience, Sir William,
what has prompted you to become a renegade to your political party and
opinions, and led you, for what I know, to be on the point of marrying
your only daughter to a beggarly Jacobite bankrupt, the inveterate enemy
of your family to the boot."

"Why, what, in the name of common sense and common civility, would you
have me do, madam?" answered her husband. "Is it possibl