The nunnery was all composed of English, most of whom had been driven into exile by the adherence of their families to that of Stuart; thence it naturally arose that all their ideas of prosperity, happiness, splendour and gaiety, were blended with the memory of England. These recollections also partook of the colouring thrown around them by the joyousness of youth; so that perhaps in no spot of earth had patriotism a firmer hold on the human heart than in the English Augustine convent at Bruges. There also did King James the Third, as he was ever styled, reign without a rival. To every inhabitant of the convent was his cause endeared by the sacrifice of friends, of property, of rank, or of situation; and all those whose age or disposition inclined them to hope, rather than to despond, looked forward with superstitious confidence to the time when "the king should enjoy his own again." It was an additional grief to the Lady Winifred that her sister's vows would prevent her ever witnessing the glorious restoration which was to take place at some future and unknown period; and it was with a feeling of desolation keener than any emotion she had experienced since the grief of childhood at her father's death, that she retired for the first time to her solitary apartment as one of the pensioners; while her sister--her friend, her companion by day and by night--was now a professed nun, immured within her narrow cell, and henceforward subject to all the rules and regulations of the order. The Lady Lucy's vocation had been so decided, and her only surviving parent's consent so unhesitating, that her noviciate had been shortened; and it seemed to Lady Winifred a sudden and violent separation. During the next year, her thoughts, which could no longer be communicated as they arose in the hourly companionship of sisterhood, turned more frequently than ever towards her native land; her studies were all of the glorious deeds of England; she read none but English poets; she carolled none but English ballads; and she hailed with joy the intelligence that her eldest sister, the Lady Mary, was united to the eldest son of Carril Viscount Molineux, and that an alliance was in treaty between the Lady Frances and the Earl of Seaforth, for she hoped her mother might wish for her society when her sisters were honourably disposed of in marriage.