Still, was he not by birth a Jacobite? a Catholic? and therefore bound from motives of religion to support a Catholic claimant to the throne? Moreover, had he not, in his romantic interview with the Pretender, pledged himself personally to his service? It was too late to retract! If any attempt were renewed in his favour, he could not but join in it. Yet the consciousness of being bound in honour to a cause of which his reason could not thoroughly approve, oppressed him with a sense of care--almost of guilt. He was a man who wished strictly to act as honour and as duty might dictate, and he was not carried away by eager hopefulness, or by ambition, or by passion. He saw and balanced so nicely the reasons and arguments on both sides, that he was apt to be dissatisfied with himself; sometimes to think he was guilty of a dereliction of duty towards his lawful sovereign, when his clear judgment forced upon him the thriving condition of his country; at others, to feel that he was perhaps ready to sacrifice the real good of thousands to his own private notions of personal honour. The Lady Nithsdale, with never-failing gentleness, soothed these wayward feelings, if wayward they may be called, which were so natural to a conscientious man in times such as those we treat of. She would chase away his gloom by light and playful converse; she would gather around him their friends and neighbours, and lure him to forget his careful thoughts in the pleasing duties of hospitality; or she would draw his attention to the gambols of their children, the young Lord Maxwell and the little Lady Anne, and lead him to join in their sports, and thus lose the sense of the conflicting duties which pressed so heavily upon his mind. He was always, and at all times, the object of her thoughts; and the earl in return hung on her as his stay, his support, his consolation. The bond of their mutual affection thus became more firmly knit than if their lives had passed in an uninterrupted flow of happiness. The affection which is wearied by sadness, or falls off in sorrow, is one which has taken but shallow root in the heart.