The remembrance of home, the images of absent friends, the memory of departed ones, were treasured up in their minds: and Lady Nithsdale would, unperceived, dwell on the pale sad brow of her lord as, hanging on his arm, she paced with him the shores of the Mediterranean; and she could easily read that his thoughts had leaped over intervening time and space, over years gone by, and over the mountains, plains, and seas that interposed between them and their home, and were sadly fixed upon the past, and the distant. He caught her eye, as tearfully, fondly, it was turned on him. "Yes," he said, "my thoughts were far from hence. The clear pure heaven above us is unbroken by a cloud, but dearer to my eyes the misty sky of Scotland; the deep blue of the unruffled sea is beautiful, but to my feelings the dusky waves that dash against the ruined walls of our own Caerlaverock are more sublime in their wild grandeur. The distinct, defined outline of yon purple mountains may be more brilliant, but my heart yearns for the softened hazy outline of our own Scotch hills, melting into the pearly hues of our watery sky!" As he spoke, a light bark glided rapidly by, and the boatmen kept time with their oars as they chanted, in their musical tongue, Italian poetry to Italian melody. "And dearer to my ears," said Lady Nithsdale, "the simple ballad of a Scottish maiden, than even these sweet sounds as they are wafted to us over the waters!" They stopped to listen to the song as it died away; and, as they listened, another and more awful sound struck upon their ears. The bell of one of the small chapels, often constructed on the shores of Catholic countries, was tolled for the soul of a departed mariner. As it happened, the tone was not unlike one of which they both retained only too vivid and painful a recollection. The countess felt her husband's frame quiver beneath the stroke. There was no need of words. With a mutual pressure of the arm, they returned upon their steps and sought their home. Unconsciously their pace quickened. They seemed to fly before the stroke of that bell! Such suffering as they had both experienced leaves traces in the soul which time itself can never wholly efface. * * * * * To those who may have been interested in the fate of the two persons who form the subject of the foregoing memoir, it may be satisfactory to know, that the Lady Nithsdale was not parted by death from her beloved husband till many years afterwards, when, in the year 1744, he died, in his exile, at Rome. She survived him five years: but she had the comfort of knowing that, by her exertions in her last visit to Terreagles, she had succeeded in securing a competency to her son, who married his cousin the Lady Catherine Stewart, daughter to the Earl and Countess of Traquhair. Her daughter, the Lady Anne Maxwell, became the wife of Lord Bellew. THE HAMPSHIRE COTTAGE. CHAPTER I.