The foundation of the story of the Hampshire Cottage is strictly true. The appearance, the characters, the sentiments, and the death of the old couple, are entirely from nature. Their very Christian names have been preserved; and the circumstance of the blind old man feeling too low for the head of the little girl, who had outgrown his recollection, actually occurred to the authoress, when visiting the cottage after a long absence. For reasons which perhaps may be understood by her friends, she adds, that the tale of Blanche was written in the year 1832. London. June 26, 1835. CONTENTS. Page Winifred, Countess of Nithsdale 1 The Hampshire Cottage 194 Blanche 273 TALES OF THE PEERAGE AND THE PEASANTRY. WINIFRED, COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. CHAPTER I. My father stood for his true king, Till standing it could do nae mair; The day is lost, and so are we,-- Nae wonder mony a heart is sair. _Jacobite Song._ The sound of the organ pealed through the chapel of the English Augustine convent at Bruges: a bright gleam of sunshine, streaming through the painted window to the south of the altar, shone upon the clouds of incense which arose in silvery folds from the censers; it shone upon the white-robed assistants, upon the priests, and upon the calm brow of the young nun who had that moment taken the irrevocable vows which separated her from the world--a world of which she knew but little; but which, from the circumstances in which her family was placed, offered not to her the temptations it usually holds out to youth, beauty, and rank such as hers. The Lady Lucy Herbert was the fourth daughter of William Marquis of Powis, who, having devoted himself to the cause of James the Second, and accompanied his queen in her flight to France, received from the exiled monarch, as a reward for his uncompromising loyalty, the empty titles of Marquis of Montgomery and Duke of Powis. James afterwards appointed him steward and chamberlain to his household--offices which, although of small advantage, may have been gratifying to his feelings, as proofs of the estimation in which he was held by the master to whom he had sacrificed everything. Upon the Duke of Powis's death, which took place in 1696, his widow placed her two youngest daughters in the English Augustine convent at Bruges; while the three elder remained with her at the melancholy shadow of a court still kept up at St. Germain's.