It corresponds with what I was informed of her schemes.

Go, Dixon, call Ratcliffe here Let him come without a minute's delay." The person he had named at this moment entered the room.
"I say, Dixon," continued Mr.Vere, in an altered tone, "let Mr.
Ratcliffe know, I beg the favour of his company on particular business .-- Ah! my dear sir," he proceeded, as if noticing him for the first time, "you are the very man whose advice can be of the utmost service to me in this cruel extremity." "What has happened, Mr.Vere, to discompose you ?" said Mr, Ratcliffe, gravely; and while the Laird of Ellieslaw details to him, with the most animated gestures of grief and indignation, the singular adventure of the morning, we shall take the opportunity to inform our readers of the relative circumstances in which these gentlemen stood to each other.
In early youth, Mr.Vere of Ellieslaw had been remarkable for a career of dissipation, which, in advanced life, he had exchanged for the no less destructive career of dark and turbulent ambition.

In both cases, he had gratified the predominant passion without respect to the diminution of his private fortune, although, where such inducements were wanting, he was deemed close, avaricious, and grasping.

His affairs being much embarrassed by his earlier extravagance, he went to England, where he was understood to have formed a very advantageous matrimonial connexion.

He was many years absent from his family estate.