free, independent,
unshackled, glorious as of old; and there was a light and lovely being
mingling in these stirring visions--when Scotland was free, what
happiness would not be his own! Agnes, who flitted before him in that
gay scene, the loveliest, dearest object there, clinging to him in her
timidity, shrinking from the gaze of the warriors around, respectful as
it was, feeling that all was strange, all save him to whom her young
heart was vowed--if such exclusiveness was dear to him, if it were bliss
to him to feel that, save her young brother, he alone had claim upon her
notice and her smile, oh! what would it be when she indeed was all, all
indivisibly his own? Was it marvel, then, his soul was full of the joy
that beamed forth from his eye, and lip, and brow--that his faintest
tone breathed gladness?

There was music and mirth in the royal halls: the shadow of care had
passed before the full sunshine of hope; but within that palace wall,
not many roods removed from the royal suite, was one heart struggling
with its lone agony, striving for calm, for peace, for rest, to escape
from the deep waters threatening to overwhelm it. Hour after hour beheld
the Countess of Buchan in the same spot, well-nigh in the same attitude;
the agonized dream of her youth had come upon her yet once again, the
voice whose musical echoes had never faded from her ear, once more had
sounded in its own deep thrilling tones, his hand had pressed her own,
his eye had met hers, aye, and dwelt upon her with the unfeigned
reverence and admiration which had marked its expression years before;
and it was to him her soul had yearned in all the fervidness of loyalty,
not to a stranger, as she had deemed him. Loyalty, patriotism, reverence
her sovereign claimed, aye, and had received; but now how dare she
encourage such emotions towards one it had been, aye, it was her duty to
forget, to think of no more? Had her husband been fond, sought the noble
heart which felt so bitterly his neglect, the gulf which now divided
them might never have existed; and could she still the voice of that
patriotism, that loyalty towards a free just monarch, which the dying
words of a parent had so deeply inculcated, and which the sentiments of
her own heart had increased in steadiness and strength? On what had that
lone heart to rest, to subdue its tempest, to give it nerve and force,
to rise pure in thought as in deed, unstained, unshaded in its
nobleness, what but it