"His majesty!" exclaimed Amy with awe; "then it must be right! And yet," she added, "I know not how it would fare with me, if the king was to send his commands from beyond the seas, that David was not to be my husband, but that I was to marry some one he chose for me! Ah, well! it is all as it should be! You are a lady, and I am a country maiden; and it is all for the best!" CHAPTER V. His soul is tost sweet hopes and doubts between, And you might almost 'mid these flutterings trace A dear assurance to be lov'd by her; For silence is Love's best interpreter. He might, besides, as she drew near, observe O'er all her face a deep vermilion dye; And short and broken, check'd by cold reserve, Her accents of condoling courtesy. _Translation from the Italian of Pulci._ The morrow came. The Lady Winifred was pale, more pale than usual. Her hands trembled as she toiled at her many-coloured silks; more time was spent in disentangling them than in embroidering. Her heart beat at every sound: she started every moment. But the duchess was in the habit of veiling all emotions under an exterior of imperturbable composure, and proceeded with the eternal carpet-work without making one false stitch, although she might feel some inward agitation at the prospect of presenting her daughter to her future husband, and some joy at that of seeing her son, who had been many months absent. Once or twice she turned her eyes upon her daughter, and secretly regretted that she seemed pale and languid, and she even fancied she could perceive traces of tears upon her cheek; but she knew that the marriage was arranged, and she was certain that a shade more or less of beauty in his betrothed would not affect the ultimate success of the negotiations with the Earl of Nithsdale. She was confident that the Herbert family was too noble to be slighted; and she doubted not that the gentleness and virtues of Winifred must attach her husband, even should her personal attractions fail to strike him at first. The Lady Winifred, meantime, thought not of her own appearance. She imagined that Lord Nithsdale was as inevitably bound to her as she was to him; and her agitation at the notion of first beholding him, and her longing desire to see the brother, who was equally a stranger to her, swallowed up all personal feelings.