“Is of the younger branch,” continued Malletort, “and given over body and soul to the cause of this miserable family, whose head died, not half-a-dozen years ago, under the shadow of our grand and gracious monarch, a victim to prejudice and indigestion. Well, these younger Hamiltons have always made it their boast that they grudged neither blood nor treasure for the Stuarts; and the Stuarts, I need hardly tell you, Florian, for you read your breviary, requited them as men must expect to be requited who put their trust in princes—particularly of that dynasty. The elder branch wisely took the oaths of allegiance, for the ingratitude of a reigning house is less hopeless than that of a dethroned family. I believe any one of them would be glad to accept office under the gracious and extremely ungraceful lady who fills the British throne, established, as I understand she is, on so broad a basis, there is but little room for a consort. They are scarce likely to obtain their wish. The younger branch would scout the idea, enveloped, one and all, in an atmosphere of prejudice truly insular, which ignorant people call loyalty. This boy’s great-grandfather died in a battle fought by Charles I., at a place with an unpronounceable name, in the province of ‘Yorkshires.’ His grandfather was shot by a platoon of musketeers in his own courtyard, under an order signed by the judicious Cromwell; and his father was drowned here, in the channel, carrying despatches for his king, as he persisted in calling him, under the respectable disguise of a smuggler. I believe this boy was with him at the time. I know when first he came to Court, people pretended that although so young he was an accomplished sailor; and I remember his hands were hard and dirty, and he always seemed to smell of tar. I will own that now, _for_ a page, he is clean, polished, and well dressed.” Florian’s dark eyes kindled. “You interest me,” said he; “I love to hear of loyalty. It is the reflection of religion upon earth.” “Precisely,” replied the other. “A shadow of the unsubstantial. Well, all his line are loyal enough, and I doubt not the boy has been brought up to believe that in the world there are men, women, and Stuarts. The fact of his being page here, I confess, puzzles me. Lord Stair protested against it, I know, but the king would not listen, and used his own wise discretion, consenting, however, that the lad should drop his family name and be called simply—George. So George fulfils the destiny of a page, whatever that may be—as gaudy, as troublesome, and to all appearance as useless an item in creation as the dragon-fly.” “And has the child no relations?” asked Florian; “no friends, nobody to whom he belongs? What a position; what a fate; what a cruel isolation!”