She was in many respects qualified for the part she played, which indeed could not be efficiently assumed without some knowledge of the human heart and passions.

Dame Gourlay perceived that Lucy shuddered at her external appearance, which we have already described when we found her in the death-chamber of blind Alice; and while internally she hated the poor girl for the involuntary horror with which she saw she was regarded, she commenced her operations by endeavouring to efface or overcome those prejudices which, in her heart, she resented as mortal offences.

This was easily done, for the hag's external ugliness was soon balanced by a show of kindness and interest, to which Lucy had of late been little accustomed; her attentive services and real skill gained her the ear, if not the confidence, of her patient; and under pretence of diverting the solitude of a sick-room, she soon led her attention captive by the legends in which she was well skilled, and to which Lucy's habit of reading and reflection induced her to "lend an attentive ear." Dame Gourlay's tales were at first of a mild and interesting character-- Of fays that nightly dance upon the wold, And lovers doom'd to wander and to weep, And castles high, where wicked wizards keep Their captive thralls.
Gradually, however, they assumed a darker and more mysterious character, and became such as, told by the midnight lamp, and enforced by the tremulous tone, the quivering and livid lip, the uplifted skinny forefinger, and the shaking head of the blue-eyed hag, might have appalled a less credulous imagination in an age more hard of belief.

The old Sycorax saw her advantage, and gradually narrowed her magic circle around the devoted victim on whose spirit she practised.

Her legends began to relate to the fortunes of the Ravenswood family, whose ancient grandeur and portentous authority credulity had graced with so many superstitious attributes.