She had been beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance.

Endowed by nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other.

She was a severe adn strict observer of the external forms, at least, of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to ostentation; her address and manners, agreeable to the pattern most valued in Scotland at the period, were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the rules of etiquette.

Her character had always been beyond the breath of slander.

And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, Lady Ashton was seldom mentioned in the terms of love or affection.