have just expressed did
not extend to all the members of the family: as much as from the bottom
of his heart the little Douglas detested William and his mother, so much
he loved George, the second of Lady Lochleven's sons, of whom we have
not yet spoken, because, being away from the castle when the queen
arrived, we have not yet found an opportunity to present him to our
readers.

George, who at this time might have been about twenty-five or twenty-six
years old, was the second son of Lord Lochleven; but by a singular
chance, that his mother's adventurous youth had caused Sir William to
interpret amiss, this second son had none of the characteristic features
of the Douglases' full cheeks, high colour, large ears, and red hair.
The result was that poor George, who, on the contrary, had been given
by nature pale cheeks, dark blue eyes, and black hair, had been since
coming into the world an object of indifference to his father and of
dislike to his elder brother. As to his mother, whether she were indeed
in good faith surprised like Lord Douglas at this difference in race,
whether she knew the cause and inwardly reproached herself, George had
never been, ostensibly at least, the object of a very lively maternal
affection; so the young man, followed from his childhood by a fatality
that he could not explain, had sprung up like a wild shrub, full of sap
and strength, but uncultivated and solitary. Besides, from the time when
he was fifteen, one was accustomed to his motiveless absences, which the
indifference that everyone bore him made moreover perfectly explicable;
from time to time, however, he was seen to reappear at the castle, like
those migratory birds which always return to the same place but only
stay a moment, then take their way again without one's knowing towards
what spot in the world they are directing their flight.

An instinct of misfortune in common had drawn Little Douglas to George.
George, seeing the child ill-treated by everyone, had conceived an
affection for him, and Little Douglas, feeling himself loved amid the
atmosphere of indifference around him, turned with open arms and heart
to George: it resulted from this mutual liking that one day, when the
child had committed I do not know what fault, and that William Douglas
raised the whip he beat his dogs with to strike him, that George, who
was sitting on a stone, sad and thoughtful, had immediately sprung up,
snatched the whip from his brother's han