ilar tales he would hearken till his heart glowed and his
eye glistened. Nor was he less affected, when his aunt, Mrs. Rachel,
narrated the sufferings and fortitude of Lady Alice Waverley during
the Great Civil War. The benevolent features of the venerable spinster
kindled into more majestic expression, as she told how Charles had,
after the field of Worcester, found a day's refuge at Waverley-Honour;
and how, when a troop of cavalry were approaching to search the mansion,
Lady Alice dismissed her youngest son with a handful of domestics,
charging them to make good with their lives an hour's diversion, that
the king might have that space for escape, 'And, God help her,' would
Mrs. Rachel continue, fixing her eyes upon the heroine's portrait as she
spoke, 'full dearly did she purchase the safety of her prince with the
life of her darling child. They brought him here a prisoner, mortally
wounded; and you may trace the drops of his blood from the great hall
door along the little gallery, and up to the saloon, where they laid
him down to die at his mother's feet. But there was comfort exchanged
between them; for he knew from the glance of his mother's eye, that
the purpose of his desperate defence was attained. Ah! I remember,' she
continued, 'I remember well to have seen one that knew and loved him.
Miss Lucy St. Aubin lived and died a maid for his sake, though one of
the most beautiful and wealthy matches in this country; all the world
ran after her, but she wore widow's mourning all her life for poor
William, for they were betrothed though not married, and died in--I
cannot think of the date; but I remember, in the November of that very
year, when she found herself sinking, she desired to be brought to
Waverley-Honour once more, and visited all the places where she had been
with my grand-uncle, and caused the carpets to be raised that she might
trace the impression of his blood, and if tears could have washed it
out, it had not been there now; for there was not a dry eye in the
house. You would have thought, Edward, that the very trees mourned for
her, for their leaves dropped around her without a gust of wind; and,
indeed, she looked like one that would never see them green again.'

From such legends our hero would steal away to indulge the fancies they
excited. In the corner of the large and sombre library, with no other
light than was afforded by the decaying brands on its ponderous and
ample hearth, he would exercise