. The hall was used generally for banquets and
other entertainments; smaller rooms leading off it were more usually
occupied by the family.

Alethea had followed her father into the hall to welcome Jack, which she
did in as cordial a manner as he could have desired, though the perfect
self-possession she exhibited, and the total want of timidity, might
have created some uncomfortable doubts in the mind of a person better
acquainted with the female heart than Jack could have been. The Squire
insisted on Jack's remaining to dine with them at the usual hour of
noon, telling him that he had a good deal to talk about, and if he still
proposed setting off on the journey he had spoken of, he would entrust
him with several letters to be delivered on the road.

While the Squire went to write his letters--a task which, although they
were not very long, took him a considerable time--Jack was left to the
society of Alethea. He was more inclined to be sentimental than he had
ever been before in his life; but she seemed in such good spirits, and
laughed so heartily at some of the remarks he made, that he very soon
returned to his natural manners. She seemed, indeed, more anxious to
persuade him that the Jacobite cause was the right one, than to attempt
to induce him to give up his proposed journey. Now she praised the late
king, and his energy, and the numerous good qualities which she declared
he possessed; and now she did her best to lower William in Jack's
opinion.

"Such a king as he is!" she exclaimed: "his manners are positively
repulsive, and he has no love for the fine arts: why they say that he
hates `bainting and boetry,' as he calls them; and when they have
brought him poor diseased children to be touched for the king's evil, as
used to be done by the royal Stuarts, he absolutely refused to put his
hand upon them. Now, you know, if he really had been a king, his touch
would most certainly have cured them."

"That never struck me before," answered Jack; "but I know when I have
read accounts of his various actions, I have often thought that he was
like a great hero: I am sure he was at the battle of the Boyne. Have
you never read an account of it? I found one only the other day in an
old `News-letter,' I think it was, or it might have been in the
`post-boy,' or the `Flying Post' The tide was running fast in the river,
and the king's charger had been forced to swim, and then was almost lost
in the mud. As soon, h