er kinsman? Perplexed, dismayed, and uncertain how
to act, she had recourse to an expedient natural to her education, and
such as would appear most obvious to a feeble and guileless female: it
was to the simple and faith-inspired expedient of prayer. And now, in
artless but sincere language, having first risen up in her bed, and bent
her body across her pillow, in the attitude of supplication, she
fervently implored the support of Heaven in her present strait, and
besought wisdom and strength to conceive and to do that which was
needful for the security of the individuals whose peace was threatened
by this conspiracy.

"I will arise," she said, as she finished her short and earnest prayer,
"with the first light of the dawn, and wait the coming of the strangers
from their chamber, and I will then be the first to tell them of the
snare that is prepared for them." With this resolve she endeavored to
compose herself to rest, but sleep fled her eyelids, and her anxious
thoughts dwelt upon and even magnified the threatened perils. It might
be too late, she reflected, to wait for the dawn of day; Adair might be
before her at the door of the guests, and his constant presence might
take from her all hope of being able to communicate the important secret
to them: it was undoubtedly her surest course to take advantage of the
stillness of the night, whilst the household were wrapt in sleep, and
apprise the strangers of their danger. But then, how was she to make her
way to their apartment, and arouse them, at this hour, from their
slumbers? To what suspicions might the attempt expose her, even from
Arthur Butler himself? And, more particularly, what would John Ramsay
think of it, if the story should be afterwards told to her disadvantage?

This last was an interrogatory which Mary Musgrove was often found
putting to herself, in winding up a self-communion. On the present
occasion this appeal to the opinion of John Ramsay had the opposite
effect from that which might have been expected from it. It suggested
new lights to her mind, and turned her thoughts into another current,
and brought that resolution to her aid which her prayer was intended to
invoke. What would John Ramsay think--he, the friend of liberty, and of
Washington, the compatriot of Butler and Robinson, now toiling with them
in the same cause! What would he think, if she, his own Mary (and the
maiden rested a moment on this phrase), did _not_ do everything in her
powe