nformed that by my flight I have erased those impressions which
my former behaviour had made in my favour. Many think I was the
murderer; and the vast power my adversary possesses at court is rendered
still more dangerous to my life and fame, by the pains that have been
taken to prepossess those who would have to decide upon my fate. But
should the death of my declining brother call me to act in the same
sphere with my proud oppressor, and put my life into safer guardianship,
I will burst from the retreat which I sometimes fear was unadvisedly
chosen, and either fall by an unjust sentence, or vindicate my
innocence. I will no longer, like the mountain-boar, owe a precarious
existence to the untrodden wilds in which I hide from my pursuers."

Even now, when the universal passion for luxury and self-enjoyment
renders prosperity so alluring, subdues our native energies, and makes
us the puppets and slaves of fortune, there are some lovely young
martyrs who immolate prudence on the shrine of love. It may easily be
imagined, therefore, that this heroine of a simpler age, instead of
being discouraged by the difficulties her Allan had to encounter, loved
him with more intense affection. He an assassin!--the eye that flamed
defiance on an ungrateful vicegerent of the King, when every knee but
his bent in homage, could never pursue a court-butterfly, or guide a
murderous dagger to a page's breast, while indignant virtue pointed the
sword of justice to a public delinquent. Isabel agreed that it was wrong
in Evellin to fly; but when, on her lonely pillow, she cast her thoughts
on the alternative, and contemplated her beloved, in the hands of him
before whom a potent peer had recently fallen; in the power of a man
armed with the confidence of two successive monarchs, and now the idol
of the people; when she saw Evellin arraigned before a packed jury, no
evidence to prove him innocent, and scarce an advocate sufficiently
courageous to defend him; female softness shrunk at the image of such
perils. She blessed the prudent De Vallance who had snatched him from
sure destruction, and rejoiced at an event which afforded her the means
of seeing human nature in its most captivating form.

When Evellin found that her constancy was proof to this trial, he
unfolded the brighter prospects which the letters he received from De
Vallance occasionally afforded. This invaluable friend had, to the great
joy of Evellin, allied himself to their house