The
sweetness of her voice, the delicacy of her expressions, the vivid glow
of her filial affection, embittered his regret at having repulsed her
gratitude with rudeness, while, at the same time, they placed before his
imagination a picture of the most seducing sweetness.
Even young Ravenswood's strength of moral feeling and rectitude of
purpose at once increased the danger of cherishing these recollections,
and the propensity to entertain them. Firmly resolved as he was to
subdue, if possible, the predominating vice in his character, he
admitted with willingness--nay, he summoned up in his imagination--the
ideas by which it could be most powerfully counteracted; and, while he
did so, a sense of his own harsh conduct towards the daughter of his
enemy naturally induced him, as if by way of recompense, to invest her
with more of grace and beauty than perhaps she could actually claim.
Had any one at this period told the Master of Ravenswood that he had
so lately vowed vengeance against the whole lineage of him whom he
considered, not unjustly, as author of his father's ruin and death, he
might at first have repelled the charge as a foul calumny; yet, upon
serious self-examination, he would have been compelled to admit that it
had, at one period, some foundation in truth, though, according to the
present tone of his sentiments, it was difficult to believe that this
had really been the case.
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