The friends to whom Lady Nithsdale alluded were Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Mills, whose names she did not care to mention even to the duchess, lest it might ever transpire that they had assisted in her lord's escape. To them she scarcely knew in what terms sufficiently to express her gratitude; and it cast a gloom over the prospect of speedy reunion to the objects of her dearest affections, to think that she should never more see the persons to whom, under Providence, she was indebted for that happy prospect. CHAPTER XXVII. But I wad rather see him roam An outcast on a foreign strand, And wi' his master beg his bread, Nae mair to see his native land, Than bow a hair o' his brave head To base usurper's tyrannye, Than cringe for mercy to a knave That ne'er was owned by him or me. _Jacobite Song._ Lady Nithsdale's voyage was performed in safety; and at Paris she joined her husband and her children, whom he had conveyed thither from Bruges to await her coming. The happiness which they had almost feared to picture was at length realised. They together gazed upon their noble boy;--she saw the little Lady Anne nestled in her father's bosom,--she gave herself up to the joy of gazing on them, with no fear that this joy should be snatched from her by any power except the immediate will of Heaven. On the 4th of May they reached Avignon, where all his adherents flocked around the Pretender,--the Earl, or, as he was there styled, the Duke of Mar, the Duke of Ormond, and many others, to the number of thirty lords. But the petty broils, the dissensions, and the jealousies of this mock court assorted but ill with the feelings and habits of Lord and Lady Nithsdale. They soon left Avignon, and proceeded to Italy, where they lived in privacy, with no wish beyond each other's society and the company of their children. After all which they had endured, it was enough to be together; and for weeks, nay, months, the delightful certainty of being restored to each other, stood in lieu of all things else. But human nature is so constituted that the continued possession of that which we have long enjoyed, and that which we no longer fear to lose, will not alone be productive of lively, positive happiness; other thoughts, other desires, find room within the heart. As their children advanced in years, they could not but feel that they were doomed to vegetate in a foreign soil,--they could not but feel that their position in life was very different from that to which they had been born.