"Indeed can they, madam. And I am not the first girl who has been slighted: they all tell me so! But I always held myself high; and it is no comfort to hear how, when his wedding morning came, Donald M'Rae was nowhere to be found; or how Jockie Smith deserted Kate Armstrong, after he had broken a gold piece with her; or how Mary Morrison pined herself to death for the loss of Jamie Elliot. But I am not one to pine myself to death! David's wife shall never hear that Amy Evans had so mean a spirit; no, she shall hear of me cheerful, and contented, madam. And why should I not be so, when I have such a good, kind lady, whom I love better--ay, better than I once did David himself!" And now the tears rained fast from her eyes, which Nature seemed to have intended should only express sprightliness and warm affection. "But, I beseech you, madam, speak not to Jean Scott or to Annie Bell of my griefs. They have never yet seen me weep, and I would not have them know that David's falsehood had wrung tears from me. I shall not feel it so much after a while, my lady! And when all is said and done, where could I ever be so happy as with my kind, my honoured mistress? So you will never say anything more, my lady, of making Jean Scott your 'tirewoman?" "Oh no! dear Amy; I should never, never like any one about me so well as you!" "I thought so, my lady; and I told Jean Scott I was sure you would never turn me off, though she prides herself so upon her taste, and the nimbleness of her fingers, and is always throwing out that the time will come when she will have my place!" And Amy was half consoled for the loss of David, when she had ascertained that she retained the same hold on her mistress's affections. Since the blight which had fallen on her first and early love, she valued the favour of her lady above all other earthly goods, and watched over it with the jealous tenderness of a lover. Her secluded education, and her own early marriage to so honourable a man, had prevented the Countess of Nithsdale's having ever witnessed, much more having ever experienced, the caprice and infidelities of the other sex. She had heard and read of them, as of matters undoubtedly true, but as never likely to come under her own immediate cognizance; and she was astonished at Amy's treating a lover's desertion of his mistress as an event of common occurrence. She wondered still more that pride should, in a low-born country maiden's heart, almost overbalance the more instinctive feeling of love. That a noble damsel should resent any slight was indispensable to her birth and breeding; and the proud blood of the Herberts mantled in her cheeks at the mere imagining such a case. But she thought, had she been lowly born, pride could never have sustained her under so cruel a blow. She forgot that, in all ranks alike, each feels the eyes of his equals upon him,--that the lowest, as well as the highest, have their world, before whom to blush is degradation.