these fears, would inevitably have produced a
restoration of the Mowbray estate to it's owner, had they not been
counteracted by the influence of the Marchioness of Montreville and Sir
Richard Crofts. The Marchioness, now in declining health, felt all the
inefficacy of riches, and all the fallacy of ambition; yet could she not
determine to relinquish one, or to own that the other had but little
power to confer happiness. That Emmeline Mowbray, whom she had despised
and rejected, should suddenly become heiress to a large fortune, and
that of that fortune her own children should be deprived; that Lord
Westhaven should be the instrument to assist her in this hateful
transition, and should interfere for this obscure orphan, against the
interest of the illustrious family into which he had married; stung her
to the soul, and irritated the natural asperity of her temper, already
soured by the repeated defection of Delamere, and her own continual ill
health, till it was grown insupportable to others, and injurious to
herself; since it aggravated all her complaints, and put it out of the
power of medicine to relieve her.

Rather than encrease these maladies by opposition, his Lordship was
content to yield to delay. And while her haughtiness and violence
withheld him on one hand from settling with his niece, Sir Richard
assailed him on the other with cool and plausible arguments; and
together they obliged him to have recourse to such expedients as gained
time, without his having much hope that he could finally detain the
property of his late brother from his daughter, who seemed likely to
establish her right to it's possession.

At once to indulge his avarice and quiet his conscience, he would
willingly have consented to pay her a considerable portion, and to leave
her right to the whole undecided; but of such an accommodation there
seemed no probability, unless he could win over Lord Westhaven to his
interest. He thought, however, that there could be little doubt of his
re-uniting the Mowbray estate with his own, by promoting the marriage
between Emmeline and Lord Delamere, which he had hitherto so strenuously
opposed. But this, he knew, must be the last resort; not only because he
was ashamed so immediately to avow a change of opinion in regard to
Emmeline, which could have happened only from her change of
circumstances, but because the dislike which Lady Montreville had
originally conceived towards her, now amounted to the most determined
and inveterate hatred.

Bent on conversing fully with Lord Westhaven before he took any measures
whatever either to detain or to restore the estate, the Marquis was
desirous of seeing him immediately on