er choice both of her man and of her
cause--for they went together--with her eyes open, and she was not a
woman to change again, nor to vex herself with vain regrets. It was
rather her nature to decide once for all, and then to throw herself
without reserve into her cause, and to follow without question her man
through good report and ill, through right, and, if need be, wrong. Yet
she was a shrewd and high-minded woman, and not one of those fortunate
fanatics who can see nothing but good on one side, and nothing but ill on
the other. Life had grown intolerable in her mother's house, and Jean
had not in her the making of a convinced and thoroughgoing Covenanter,
and in going over to the other party, she had, on the whole, fulfilled
herself, as well as found a mate of the same proud spirit. But she
was honest enough to admit to herself that those Ayrshire peasants were
dying for conscience' sake, though she might think it a narrow
conscience, and were sincere in their piety, though she might think it an
unattractive religion. And she could not shut her eyes to the fact that
there was little glory in shooting them down like muirfowl, or that the
men of Claverhouse's side were too often drunken and evil-living bravos.

Jean was feeling the situation in its acuteness that evening as she
read for the third time a letter which had come from Edinburgh by the
hands of Grimond. At the sight of the writing her pulse quickened, and
Grimond marked, with jealous displeasure (for that impracticable Scot
never trusted Jean), the flush of love upon her cheek and its joy in
her eyes. She now drew the letter from her bosom, and this is what she
read, but in a different spelling from ours and with some slight
differences in construction, all of which have been translated:

SWEETHEART: It is my one trouble when I must leave you, and save
when I am engaged on the king's work my every thought is with you,
for indeed it appeareth to me that if I loved you with strong
desire on the day of our marriage, I love you more soul and body
this day. When another woman speaks to me in the daytime, though
they say that she is fair, her beauty coming into comparison with
your's, is disparaged, beside the sheen of your hair and the
richness of your lips, and though she may have a pleasant way with
men, as they tell me, she hath no lure for me, as I picture you
throw back your head and look at me with eyes that challenge my
love. Whe