It was dark by the time they entered the avenue of Ravenswood Castle, a
long straight line leading directly to the front of the house, flanked
with huge elm-trees, which sighed to the night-wind, as if they
compassionated the heir of their ancient proprietors, who now returned
to their shades in the society, and almost in the retinue, of their new
master. Some feelings of the same kind oppressed the mind of the Master
himself. He gradually became silent, adn dropped a little behind the
lady, at whose bridle-rein he had hitherto waited with such devotion.
He well recollected the period when, at the same hour in the evening, he
had accompanied his father, as that nobleman left, never again to
return to it, the mansion from which he derived his name and title. The
extensive front of the old castle, on which he remembered having often
looked back, was then "as black as mourning weed." The same front now
glanced with many lights, some throwing far forward into the night
a fixed and stationary blaze, and others hurrying from one window to
another, intimating the bustle and busy preparation preceding their
arrival, which had been intimated by an avant-courier.
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