In that case Mac-Morlan was assured he would readily give up his bargain, if tempted with something above the price which he had stipulated to pay.

It may seem strange that Mannering was so much attached to a spot which he had only seen once, and that for a short time, in early life.

But the circumstances which passed there had laid a strong hold on his imagination.

There seemed to be a fate which conjoined the remarkable passages of his own family history with those of the inhabitants of Ellangowan, and he felt a mysterious desire to call the terrace his own from which he had read in the book of heaven a fortune strangely accomplished in the person of the infant heir of that family, and corresponding so closely with one which had been strikingly fulfilled in his own.

Besides, when once this thought had got possession of his imagination, he could not, without great reluctance, brook the idea of his plan being defeated, and by a fellow like Glossin.