requests and implicit obedience to her commands, but
detrimental, because it cannot exist with affection or regard.

Even her husband, it is said, upon whose fortunes her talents and
address had produced such emphatic influence, regarded her with
respectful awe rather than confiding attachment; and report said, there
were times when he considered his grandeur as dearly purchased at the
expense of domestic thraldom. Of this, however, much might be suspected,
but little could be accurately known: Lady Ashton regarded the honour of
her husband as her own, and was well aware how much that would suffer
in the public eye should he appear a vassal to his wife. In all her
arguments his opinion was quoted as infallible; his taste was appealed
to, and his sentiments received, with the air of deference which a
dutiful wife might seem to owe to a husband of Sir William Ashton's rank
adn character. But there was something under all this which rung false
and hollow; and to those who watched this couple with close, and perhaps
malicious, scrutiny it seemed evident that, in the haughtiness of
a firmer character, higher birth, and more decided views of
aggrandisement, the lady looked with some contempt on her husband,
and that he regarded her with jealous fear, rather than with love or
admiration.

Still, however, the leading and favourite interests of Sir William
Ashton and his lady were the same, and they failed not to work in
concert, although without cordiality, and to testify, in all exterior
circumstances, that respect for each other which they were aware was
necessary to secure that of the public.

Their union was crowned with several children, of whom three survived.
One, the eldest son, was absent on his travels; the second, a girl of
seventeen, adn the third, a boy about three years younger, resided
with their parents in Edinburgh during the sessions of the Scottish
Parliament and Privy Council, at other times in the old Gothic castle
of Ravenswood, to which the Lord Keeper had made large additions in the
style of the 17th century.

Allan Lord Ravenswood, the late proprietor of that ancient mansion
adn the large estate annexed to it, continued for some time to wage
ineffectual war with his successor concerning various points to which
their former transactions had given rise, and which were successively
determined in favour of the wealthy and powerful competitor, until death
closed the litigation, by summoning Ravenswood t