She burnt the papers as regularly as she
perused them; and as they consumed into vapour and tinder, regarded them
with a smile upon her compressed lips, and an exultation in her steady
eye, which showed her confidence that the hopes of the writers should
soon be rendered equally unsubstantial.
It usually happens that fortune aids the machinations of those who are
prompt to avail themselves of every chance that offers. A report was
wafted from the continent, founded, like others of the same sort, upon
many plausible circumstances, but without any real basis, stating the
Master of Ravenswood to be on the eve of marriage with a foreign lady
of fortune and distinction. This was greedily caught up by both the
political parties, who were at once struggling for power and for popular
favour, and who seized, as usual, upon the most private circumstances
in the lives of each other's partisans t convert them into subjects of
political discussion.
The Marquis of A---- gave his opinion aloud and publicly, not indeed in
the coarse terms ascribed to him by Captain Craigengelt, but in a manner
sufficiently offensive to the Ashtons.
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