station. Lindsay was a man of a kind and liberal heart, easy and passive
in his nature, but with a good deal of sarcastic humor, yet neither
severe nor prejudiced, and, consequently, a popular magistrate as
well as a popular man. Goodwin might be said to possess a similar
disposition; but he was of a more quiet and unobtrusive character than
his cheerful neighbor. His mood of mind was placid and serene, and his
heart as tender and affectionate as ever beat in a human bosom. His
principal enjoyment lay in domestic life--in the society, in fact, of
his wife and one beautiful daughter, his only child, a girl of nineteen
when our tale opens. Lindsay's family consisted of one son and two
daughters; but his wife, who was a widow when he married her, had
another son by her first husband, who had been abroad almost since his
childhood, with a grand-uncle, whose intention was to provide for him,
being a man of great wealth and a bachelor.

We have already said that the two families were upon the most intimate
and friendly terms; but to this there was one exception in the person of
Mrs. Lindsay, whose natural disposition was impetuous, implacable, and
overbearing; equally destitute of domestic tenderness and good temper.
She was, in fact, a woman whom not even her own children, gifted as they
were with the best and most affectionate dispositions, could love as
children ought to love a parent. Utterly devoid of charity, she was
never known to bestow a kind act upon the poor or distressed, or a
kind word upon the absent. Vituperation and calumny were her constant
weapons; and one would imagine, by the frequency and bitterness with
which she wielded them, that she was in a state of perpetual warfare
with society. Such, indeed, was the case; but the evils which resulted
from her wanton and indefensible aggressions upon private character
almost uniformly recoiled upon her own head; for, as far as her name
was known, she was not only unpopular, but odious. Her husband was a man