o call it into operation. I was aware of
this, and I accordingly constructed my story upon that principle. I have
nothing further to add: the story itself will detail the rest.

CHAPTER I. Short and Preliminary.

In a certain part of Ireland, inside the borders of the county of
Waterford, lived two respectable families, named Lindsay and Goodwin,
the former being of Scotch descent. Their respective residences were not
more than three miles distant; and the intimacy that subsisted between
them was founded, for many years, upon mutual good-will and esteem,
with two exceptions only in one of the families, which the reader will
understand in the course of our narrative. Each ranked in the class
known as that of the middle gentry. These two neighbors--one of whom,
Mr. Lindsay, was a magistrate--were contented with their lot in life,
which was sufficiently respectable and independent to secure to them
that true happiness which is most frequently annexed to the middle
station. Lindsay was a man of a kind and liberal heart, easy and passive
in his nature, but with a good deal of sarcastic humor, yet neither
severe nor prejudiced, and, consequently, a popular magistrate as
well as a popular man. Goodwin might be said to possess a similar
disposition; but he was of a more quiet and unobtrusive character than
his cheerful neighbor. His mood of mind was placid and serene, and his
heart as tender and affectionate as ever beat in a human bosom. His
principal enjoyment lay in domestic life--in the society, in fact, of
his wife and one beautiful daughter, his only child, a girl of nineteen
when our tale opens. Lindsay's family consisted of one son and two
daughters; but his wife, who was a widow when he married her, had
another son by her first husband, who had been abroad almost since his
childhood, with a grand-uncle, whose intention was to provide for him,
being a man of great wealth and a bachelor.

We have already said that the two families were upon the most intimate
and friendly terms; but to this there was one exception in the person of
Mrs. Lindsay, whose natural disposition was impetuous, implacable, and
overbearing; equally destitute of domestic tenderness and good temper.
She was, in fact, a woman whom not even her own children, gifted as they
were with the best and most affectionate dispositions, could love as
children ought to love a parent. Utterly devoid of charity, she was
never known to bestow a kind act upo