dais,
where he presented to him the ladies of his family, ordering the
retainers, of whom about a score were gathered in the hall, to
place two piles of sheepskins near the fire. On one of these he sat
down, and motioned to Archie to take his place on the other--his
own chair being removed to a corner. Then, through the medium of
Ronald, the conversation began.

Archie related to the chief the efforts which the Scotch were
making to win their freedom from England, and urged in the king's
name that a similar effort should be made by the Irish; as the
forces of the English, being thereby divided and distracted, there
might be better hope of success. The chief heard the communication
in grave silence. The ladies of the family stood behind the chief
with deeply interested faces; and as the narrative of the long
continued struggle which the Scots were making for freedom continued
it was clear, by their glowing cheeks and their animated faces,
how deeply they sympathized in the struggle.

The wife of the chief, a tall and stately lady, stood immediately
behind him with her two daughters, girls of some seventeen or
eighteen years of age, beside her. As Ronald was translating his
words Archie glanced frequently at the group, and thought he had
never seen one fairer or more picturesque. There was a striking
likeness between mother and daughters; but the expression of staid
dignity in the one was in the others replaced by a bright expression
of youth and happiness. Their beauty was of a kind new to Archie.
Their dark glossy hair was kept smoothly in place by the fillet
of gold in the mother's case, and by purple ribbons in that of the
daughters. Their eyebrows and long eyelashes were black, but their
eyes were gray, and as light as those to which Archie was accustomed
under the fair tresses of his countrywomen. The thing that struck
him most in the faces of the girls was their mobility, the expression
changing as it seemed in an instant from grave to gay--flushing
at one moment with interest at the tale of deeds of valour, paling
at the next at the recital of cruel oppression and wrong. When Archie
had finished his narrative he presented to the chief a beautifully
wrought chain of gold as a token from the King of Scotland.

The chief was silent for some time after the interpreter concluded
Archie's narrative; then he said:

"Sir knight, it almost seems to me as if I had been listening to
the tale of the wrongs of Ireland,