The Lost Heir

Mrs. Southworth was the most popular woman novelist in mid-nineteenth-century America. She offered her readers an emotional roller coaster ride that they happily took again and again. Excerpt: Ronald, Marquis of Shetland, had been distinguished in the councils of his country, a leading Tory in the House of Lords, an able diplomat at foreign courts, a wise colonial governor in India, where wisdom was of more value than was force of arms. But now he was retired from public affairs, and was living quietly at Trosach Castle. He had married, early in life, a daughter of the ancient house of Murray, a handsome, haughty woman, who only needed temptation and opportunity to be come cruel and wicked. No children had blessed this long union, but their place was well filled in the hearts and home of the childless couple by the orphan niece and ward of the earl, the beautiful Eglantine Seton, Baroness of Linlithgow, in her own right.