
intricacies of which had been planned with so much art, is destroyed by the
chance sweep of a broom. And then, if he should commit himself too far in this
matter, it gave rise to a perilous question which many a good husband, when
under temptation to act as a free agent, has asked himself without being able to
return a satisfactory answer; »What will my wife - what will Lady Ashton say?«
On the whole, he came at length to the resolution in which minds of a weaker
cast so often take refuge. He resolved to watch events, to take advantage of
circumstances as they occurred, and regulate his conduct accordingly. In this
spirit of temporising policy, he at length composed his mind to rest.
 

                               Chapter Fifteenth

            A slight note I have about me for you, for the delivery of which you
            must excuse me. It is an offer that friendship calls upon me to do,
            and no way offensive to you, since I desire nothing but right upon
            both sides.
                                                               King and no King.
 
When Ravenswood and his guest met in the morning, the gloom of the Master's
spirit had in part returned. He, also, had passed a night rather of reflection
than of slumber; and the feelings which he could not but entertain towards Lucy
Ashton, had to support a severe conflict against those which he had so long
nourished against her father. To clasp in friendship the hand of the enemy of
his house, to entertain him under his roof, to exchange with him the courtesies
and the kindness of domestic familiarity, was a degradation which his proud
spirit could not be bent to without a struggle.
    But the ice being once broken, the Lord Keeper was resolved it should not
have time again to freeze. It had been part of his plan to stun and confuse
Ravenswood's ideas, by a complicated and technical statement of the matters
which had been in debate betwixt their families, justly thinking that it would
be difficult for a youth of his age to follow the expositions of a practical
lawyer, concerning actions of compt and reckoning, and of multiplepoindings, and
adjudications and wadsets, proper and improper, and poindings of the ground, and
declarations of the expiry of the legal. Thus, thought Sir William, I shall have
all the grace of appearing perfectly communicative, while my party will derive
very little advantage from anything I may tell him. He therefore took Ravenswood
aside into the deep recess of a window in the hall, and resuming the discourse
of the preceding evening, expressed a hope that his young friend would assume
some patience, in order
