, who, laying every other wish aside, had
bent the whole efforts of her powerful mind to break her daughter's contract
with Ravenswood, and to place a perpetual bar between the lovers, by effecting
Lucy's union with Bucklaw. Far more deeply skilled than her husband in the
recesses of the human heart, she was aware, that in this way she might strike a
blow of deep and decisive vengeance upon one whom she esteemed as her mortal
enemy; nor did she hesitate at raising her arm, although she knew that the wound
must be dealt through the bosom of her daughter. With this stern and fixed
purpose, she sounded every deep and shallow of her daughter's soul, assumed
alternately every disguise of manner which could serve her object, and prepared
at leisure every species of dire machinery by which the human mind can be
wrenched from its settled determination. Some of these were of an obvious
description, and require only to be cursorily mentioned; others were
characteristic of the time, the country, and the persons engaged in this
singular drama.
    It was of the last consequence that all intercourse betwixt the lovers
should be stopped, and by dint of gold and authority, Lady Ashton contrived to
possess herself of such a complete command of all who were placed around her
daughter, that, in fact, no leaguered fortress was ever more completely
blockaded; while, at the same time, to all outward appearance, Miss Ashton lay
under no restriction. The verge of her parents' domains became, in respect to
her, like the viewless and enchanted line drawn around a fairy castle, where
nothing unpermitted can either enter from without, or escape from within. Thus
every letter, in which Ravenswood conveyed to Lucy Ashton the indispensable
reasons which detained him abroad, and more than one note which poor Lucy had
addressed to him through what she thought a secure channel, fell into the hands
of her mother. It could not be but that the tenor of these intercepted letters,
especially those of Ravenswood, should contain something to irritate the
passions, and fortify the obstinacy, of her into whose hands they fell; but Lady
Ashton's passions were too deep-rooted to require this fresh food. She burnt the
papers as regularly as she perused them; and as they consumed into vapour and
tinder, regarded them with a smile upon her compressed lips, and an exultation
in her steady eye, which showed her confidence that the hopes of the writers
should soon be rendered equally unsubstantial.
    It usually happens that fortune aids the machinations of those who are
prompt to avail themselves of every chance that
