“Rub down my horse well, while I am at breakfast,” said Armstrong, and, receiving every assurance that the beast of so excellent a highwayman should get earnest attention, he went to the inn and there found Frances awaiting him. The girl was standing by the window, which was low and long, with a valance of crimpled spotted muslin running athwart the lower half of it. A bench was fixed beneath the window, and on this bench the girl had rested a knee, while her cheek was placed against the diamond panes. The light struck her face and illuminated it strongly, and she stood so still that she seemed to form part of a tableau which might have been entitled “Watching.” On the table placed in the centre of the room, breakfast was spread. It was a jubilant man who disturbed this quiet picture by his abrupt in-coming. The early morning gallop, the excitement of contest, the flush of victory, all had their effect on his bearing, and he came in with the mien of a Saxon prince, his yellow hair almost touching the beams of the low ceiling. The two formed a striking contrast when the embodiment of elation approached the embodiment of dejection. There was a new furtiveness in the brief glance she cast upon him, and after her first startled cognizance she looked beyond him, on either side of him, over his head, or at his feet, but never turned her eyes full upon him as of yore. “Ah, my girl,” he cried, “you have not slept well. I can see that at once. This will never do; never do at all. But you are certainly looking better this morning than you did last night. Is that not so?” “You are looking very well,” she said, avoiding his question. “Oh I’ve had a morning gallop already.” “What! With the ride to Scotland still before you. Is not a merciful man merciful to his horse?” “He should be, but I may say this for Bruce; he enjoyed the ride quite as much as I did. And now I am ravenous for breakfast, and eager for the road again.” He tinkled a little hand-bell that rested on the table. “We have another splendid day for it. The sunrise this morning was positively inspiring. Come, lass, and sit you down. We must get the roses back into those cheeks, and I think the ride to-day will do it; for we will be nearing the North, ever nearing the North, and you are just like me, you are yearning for the Northland, where all the men are brave and all the women fair.” “Fair and false, perhaps you would add. That was your phrase, I think.” William laughed heartily, drawing in his chair. “Yes, about our Stuarts, not about our ladies. They are ever leal and true. And indeed many of them are dark as well as fair, and they are the best. Dark hair, fair face, and a loyal heart; there is a combination to cherish when God is good to a man and allows him to meet it.”