For a season wedded life went pleasantly at Hawksglen--the cup of the happy pair, who seemed absorbed in a dream of love, betraying no bitter drop. But the time came when the dream was broken. The mask which the lady had worn was withdrawn, and her husband was undeceived. She now evinced an unequal temper, a degree of whim and caprice, and an obstinate desire to subject everything to her will, which eventually dissipated much of Elliot's matrimonial happiness. In vain did he strive to wean her back to her former self: and he mingled with the troubles of the Border to counteract the feeling of disappointment.
An evil hour for the foundling boy was that in which Dame Anne came to Hawksglen. She was duly informed of the mysterious manner in which the child had been left, and of the injunctions laid upon her husband by his dying mother, which he felt it his bounden duty to respect. The lady affected to acquiesce in his sentiments; but at heart she thought otherwise. Secretly jealous that the boy might prejudice her own children in their father's estimation, and perhaps ultimately receive some portion of the Hawksglen lands (suspicions which cannot be considered as wholly unnatural), she soon endeavoured, by various little arts, to diminish her husband's regard for the foundling. Her enmity strengthened when, in about a year after marriage, she gave birth to twin daughters. After that event, little Eustace became more and more the object of the mother's dislike, and Elliot, anxious to soothe her feelings, relaxed in his attentions to the boy.
Eustace grew up a handsome youth, of a high spirit but an urbane and generous nature, which endeared him to all the dependants of Hawksglen. Lady Elliot, seeing in him more and more the likely cause of future trouble and danger, never ceased plying her insidious arts against him. Every trivial mistake or fault of his she reported to her husband in such exaggerated shape as was possible: and it seemed her aim to lower Eustace from the position of an accepted member of the family to that of a mere dependant, who had no claim to higher consideration. As she had no more children, and the want of a son embittering her jealousy of the foundling, she frequently told her husband that unless he secretly wished to adopt Eustace altogether, to the injury of his daughters' interests, it was doing wrong to maintain him in a station to which he had not the shadow of right.