ght be one as this, my liege," she answered, in the
same tone; "let a matron arm him, good my liege," she added, sadly--"let
a mother's hand enwrap his boyish limbs in steel, a mother's blessing
mark him thine and Scotland's, that those who watch his bearing in the
battle-field may know who sent him there, may thrill his heart with
memories of her who stands alone of her ancestral line, that though he
bears the name of Comyn, the blood of Fife flows reddest in his veins."

"Arm him and welcome, noble lady," answered the king, and a buzz of
approbation ran through the hall; "and may thy noble spirit and
dauntless loyalty inspire him; we shall not need a trusty follower while
such as he are round us. Yet, in very deed, my youthful knight must
have a lady fair for whom he tilts to-day. Come hither, Isoline; thou
lookest verily inclined to envy thy sweet friend her office, and nothing
loth to have a loyal knight thyself. Come, come, my pretty one, no
blushing now. Lennox, guide those tiny hands aright."

Laughing and blushing, Isoline, the daughter of Lady Campbell, a sister
of the Bruce, a graceful child of some thirteen summers, advanced,
nothing loth, to obey her royal uncle's summons, and an arch smile of
real enjoyment irresistibly stole over the countenance of Alan,
dispersing the emotion his mother's words produced.

"Nay, tremble not, sweet one," the king continued, in a lower and yet
kinder tone, as he turned from the one youth to the other, and observed
that Agnes, overpowered by emotion, had scarcely power to perform her
part, despite the whispered words of encouraging affection Nigel
murmured in her ear. Imaginative to a degree, which, by her quiet,
subdued manners, was never suspected, the simple act of those early
flowers withering in her grasp, fresh as they were from the hand of her
betrothed, had weighed down her spirits as with an indefinable sense of
pain, which she could not combat. The war of the elements, attending as
it did the vigil of her lover, had not decreased these feelings, and the
morning found her dispirited and shrinking in sensitiveness from the
very scene she had anticipated with joy.

"It must not be with a trembling hand the betrothed of a Bruce arms her
chosen knight, fair Agnes," continued the king, cheeringly. "She must
inspire him with valor and confidence. Smile, then, gentlest and
loveliest; we would have all smiles to-day."

And she did smile, but it was a smile of tears, glea