expression singularly stern and malignant.

On looking at his own image, he could not help feeling the conviction,
that the visage which presented itself to him was not such a one as was
calculated to diminish the unpopularity which accompanied him wherever
he went, and the obloquy which hung over his name.

Sir Thomas Gourlay, however, although an exceedingly forbidding and
ugly man, was neither a fool nor novice in the ways of the world. No man
could look upon his plotting forehead, and sunken eyes closely placed,
without feeling at once that he was naturally cunning and circumventive.
Nor was this all; along with being deep and designing, he was also
subject to sudden bursts of passion, which, although usual in such a
temperament, did not suddenly pass away. On the contrary, they were
sometimes at once so tempestuous and abiding, that he had been rendered
ill by their fury, and forced to take to his bed for days together.
On the present occasion, a considerable portion of his indignation was
caused by the fact, that he knew not the individual against whom to
direct it. His daughter, as a daughter, had been to him an object of
perfect indifference, from the day of her birth up to that moment; that
is to say, he was utterly devoid of all personal love and tenderness
for her, whilst, at the same time, he experienced, in its full force, a
cold, conventional ambition, which, although without honor, principle,
or affection, yet occasioned him to devote all his efforts and energies
to her proper establishment in the world. In her early youth, for
instance, she had suffered much from delicate health, so much, indeed,
that she was more than once on the very verge of death; yet, on no
occasion, was he ever known to manifest the slightest parental sorrow
for her illness. Society, however, is filled with such fathers, and with
too many mothers of a like stamp. So far, however, as Lucy Gourlay was