But his lady, who is tongue of the trump, Master----" "What of Lady Ashton, my lord ?" said Ravenswood; "let me know the issue of this extraordinary conference: I can bear it." "I am glad of that, kinsman," said the Marquis, "for I am ashamed to tell you half what she said.

It is enough--her mind is made up, and the mistress of a first-rate boarding-school could not have rejected with more haughty indifference the suit of a half-pay Irish officer, beseeching permission to wait upon the heiress of a West India planter, than Lady Ashton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at all become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman.

I cannot guess what she means.

A more honourable connexion she could not form, that's certain.

As for money and land, that used to be her husband's business rather than hers; I really think she hates you for having the rank which her husband has not, and perhaps for not having the lands that her goodman has.