On the morning preceding the night in which Hobbie's house was plundered
and burnt, Miss Vere was requested by her father to accompany him in a
walk through a distant part of the romantic grounds which lay round
his castle of Ellieslaw. "To hear was to obey," in the true style of
Oriental despotism; but Isabella trembled in silence while she followed
her father through rough paths, now winding by the side of the river,
now ascending the cliffs which serve for its banks. A single servant,
selected perhaps for his stupidity, was the only person who attended
them. From her father's silence, Isabella little doubted that he had
chosen this distant and sequestered scene to resume the argument which
they had so frequently maintained upon the subject of Sir Frederick's
addresses, and that he was meditating in what manner he should most
effectually impress upon her the necessity of receiving him as her
suitor. But her fears seemed for some time to be unfounded. The only
sentences which her father from time to time addressed to her, respected
the beauties of the romantic landscape through which they strolled, and
which varied its features at every step.
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