The duchess's coach was in waiting to convey the Lady Winifred to her mother's presence--the Duchess of Powis having undertaken a journey to London purposely to receive her daughter: she usually resided in retirement at her son's castle in Wales. She did not wish to excite suspicion by openly refusing to attend the court of Queen Anne; yet she could not bring herself to pay the accustomed homage expected of one of her exalted rank, when, in truth, she was devoted to the cause of the Chevalier de St. George--when she looked upon Queen Anne as an usurper, though, as many others at that time did, she looked upon her in the light of an unwilling usurper. Queen Anne was known to speak with kindness and pity of her exiled brother; and she was not regarded by the Jacobites with the same horror they had entertained towards Mary, whose want of filial piety afforded her enemies a never-failing topic for eloquent invective. As the heavy coach, with its ponderous horses, conveyed Lady Winifred to that part of the town where the Duchess of Powis had for the time established herself, her feelings were too much excited to remark upon the long, muddy, and unpaved streets, which contrasted so strangely with the extreme brilliancy of the shops, and which usually called forth the astonishment of those who visited London for the first time. At length she was ushered into the presence of her who was at once a parent and a stranger. She knelt at her feet;--it was her mother's hand which was placed upon her head--it was her mother's voice which pronounced a blessing over her. The venerable lady embraced her, while a tear shone beneath her eyelid. She looked with tenderness upon her child--her youngest child, but it was a tenderness mixed with reserve and with habitual stateliness. Her mind had been of late years turned to matters of secrecy and importance, and her countenance had acquired an expression which, while it did not amount to sternness, was nearly enough allied to it to awe her young daughter rather than to attract her. Her silver hair was parted smoothly from her forehead, while a black silk hood, from beneath which appeared a close cap of the finest lace, formed her head-dress. Her stature was tall, and remarkably erect. She moved and looked the daughter of a long line of ancestors--the widow of the true and loyal Duke of Powis--the mother of a race of nobles! The Lady Winifred was presented to many of her relations; and to her sisters, the Ladies Seaforth and Carrington, and the Lady Mary Molineux. All were delighted with the timid and graceful girl, whose heart was so ready to receive them, as if she had ever been nurtured among them; while the freshness of her mind, her wonder at all she saw, and her determination to love and to admire every thing English, rendered her as interesting as she was attaching.