So passed the first years of beings training for immortality.  The children insensibly ceased to be children, and Lady Juliana would have beheld the increasing height and beauty of her daughter with extreme disapprobation, had not that beauty, by awakening her ambition, also excited her affection, if the term affection could be applied to that heterogeneous mass of feelings and propensities that “shape had none distinguishable.”  Lady Juliana had fallen into an error very common with wiser heads than hers that of mistaking the effect for the cause. She looked no farther than to her union with Henry Douglas for the foundation of all her unhappiness; it never once occurred to her that her marriage was only the consequence of something previously wrong; she saw not the headstrong passions that had impelled her to please herself—­no matter at what price.  She thought not of the want of principle, she blushed not at the want of delicacy, that had led her to deceive a parent and elope with a man to whose character she was a total stranger.  She therefore considered herself as having fallen a victim to love; and could she only save her daughter from a similar error she might yet by her means retrieve her fallen fortune.  To implant principles of religion and virtue in her mind was not within the compass of her own; but she could scoff at every pure and generous affection; she could ridicule every disinterested attachment; and she could expatiate on the never-fading joys that attend on wealth and titles, jewels and equipages; and all this she did in the belief that she was acting the part of a most wise and tender parent!  The seed, thus carefully sown, promised to bring forth an abundant harvest.  At eighteen Adelaide Douglas was as heartless and ambitious as she was beautiful and accomplished; but the surface was covered with flowers, and who would have thought of analysing the soil?

It sometimes happens that the very means used with success in the formation of one character produce a totally opposite effect upon another.  The mind of Lady Emily Lindore had undergone exactly the same process in its formation as that of her cousin; yet in all things they differed.  Whether it were the independence of high birth, or the pride of a mind conscious of its own powers, she had hitherto resisted the sophistry of her governesses and the solecisms of her aunt.  But her notions of right and wrong were too crude to influence the general tenor of her life, or operate as restraints upon a naturally high spirit and impetuous temper.  Not all the united efforts of her preceptresses had been able to form a manner for their pupil; nor could their authority restrain her from saying what she thought, and doing what she pleased; and, in spite of both precept and example, Lady Emily remained as insupportably natural and sincere as she was beautiful and piquante. At six years old she had declared her intention of marrying her cousin Edward Douglas, and at eighteen her words were little less equivocal.  Lord Courtland, who never disturbed himself about anything, was rather diverted with this juvenile attachment; and Lady Juliana, who cared little for her son, and still less for her niece, only wondered how people could be such fools as to think of marrying for love, after she had told them how miserable it would make them.