his fulsome flattery of
your services in the royal cause, the base means by which he has robbed
you of your rest and taken the color from your cheek. I thought him too
busy in distracting your peace to cast a thought upon me. But to speak
to me, father, of attachment," she said, rising and taking a station so
near Lindsay's chair as to be able to lean her arm upon his shoulder,
"to breathe one word of a wish to win my esteem, that he dared not do."

"You speak under the impulse of some unnecessarily excited feeling,
daughter. You apply terms and impute motives that sound too harsh from
your lips, when the subject of them is a brave and faithful gentleman.
Mr. Tyrrel deserves nothing at our hands but kindness."

"Alas, my dear father, alas, that you should think so!"

"What have you discovered, Mildred, or heard, that you should deem so
injuriously of this man? Who has conjured up this unreasonable aversion
in your mind against him?"

"I am indebted to no sources of information but my own senses," replied
Mildred; "I want no monitor to tell me that he is not to be trusted. He
is not what he seems."

"True, he is not what he seems, but better. Tyrrel appears here but as a
simple gentleman, wearing, for obvious reasons, an assumed name. The
letters he has brought me avouch him to be a man of rank and family,
high in the confidence of the officers of the king, and holding a
reputable commission in the army: a man of note, worthy to be trusted
with grave enterprises, distinguished for sagacity, bravery, and honor,
of moral virtues which would dignify any station, and, as you cannot but
acknowledge from your own observation, filled with the courtesy and
grace of a gentleman. Fie, daughter! it is sinful to derogate from the
character of an honorable man."

"Wearing an assumed name, father, and acting a part, here, at the Dove
Cote! Is it necessary for his purpose that, under this roof, he should
appear in masquerade? May I know whether he treats with you for my hand
in his real or assumed character--does he permit me to know who he is?"

"All in good time, Mildred. Content you, girl, that he has sufficiently
certified himself to me. These are perilous times, and Tyrrel is obliged
to practise much address to find his way along our roads. You are aware
it would not be discreet to have him known even to our servants. But the
time will come when you shall know him as himself, and then, if I
mistake not, your generous natur