Lady Nithsdale answered not. The words "pale, and stiff, and cold, and bloody, on the bare ground," had conjured up an image to her mind which seemed to curdle the very life-blood in her veins. She clasped her hands closely, and pressing them tightly on her knee, she sat with fixed eyes and lips compressed, striving to exclude from her mind thoughts which would rush into it. "Oh, say no more, dear Amy; I cannot, must not think. Each day, each hour, may bring us news of a battle in England. How do we know what may be the result? Alas! if it were not for the blood which runs in my veins,--if I were not a Herbert,--if I were not married to a Maxwell, I too might wish that----But no, I will not utter what would be, in me, a dereliction of duty,--treason to the cause my lord upholds. I will remember that my lord has done that which he deemed it his duty to do; and for the event, we must leave it to Providence. We must submit, and only pray for strength to perform the part that may be allotted us, whatever that part may be. It is but two days since I received such a letter from my dear sister the abbess as should teach me to trust and to submit. Oh! if I could but look as she does, on all earthly and temporal concerns! but, alas! how can one wean one's self so entirely from this world, when it contains one's soul's treasures? Lucy has no husband! Lucy has no children! Alas! these ties hold me down so tight to earth, that not all her holy counsel, not all Father Albert's ghostly advice, are enough to detach my heart from it: I cannot fix my thoughts, as they bid me, on Heaven, and Heaven alone." "Nay, my lady, nor is it fitting you should. It is for priests and nuns to be so much better than other people: it would never do for those who have to wrestle with the world as it is, not to have their thoughts somewhat in it." "Yes; but Amy, the more our affections are set upon things which are not of this world, the more thoroughly we shall be enabled to do our duty here." "I am sure my lady, there is no need for anybody to do their duty better than you do; and whichever way your heart is set, it must be the right way;" replied Amy, whose devoted attachment was such that she did not like to hear it implied, even from her lady's own lips, that she was capable of improvement. "I must not value myself according to your estimate, Amy," replied Lady Nithsdale, smiling, "or I shall be sadly lacking in that first of Christian virtues--humility." It was not many days after the battle, or, as the Jacobites termed it, the victory, of Sherriff Muir, that vague rumours reached Terreagles of disaster and defeat at Preston.