The Lady Winifred received this intelligence with tears and sorrow. The notion of resistance to the wishes of her superiors never crossed her mind as within the scope of possible events; but the prospect which unfolded itself before her seemed to her simple, yet ardent imagination, awful in the extreme. "Have you ever seen the Earl of Nithsdale?" she timidly inquired, after the long silence which succeeded Rachael Evans's developement of the views entertained with regard to her. "No, my sweet young lady," replied Evans; "but you need not harbour a fear that he is other than a good and a noble gentleman. There never was a Whig nor a traitor among any of the Maxwells of Caerlaverock. Was it not his ancestor, the noble Sir Eustace, who was as true to King Robert Bruce, as your own blessed father was to his king? and rather than that the enemy should have a chance of turning it into a garrison for themselves, did he not, with his own hands, assist in demolishing his fair castle of Caerlaverock? The king gave him twenty-two pounds in money for this piece of service; and though that sounds little enough in these days, they say it was then thought a great sum of money. It was his ancestor, Lord Robert, who was killed at the battle of Flodden, fighting by King James's side. They always were a noble family, and true to their lawful sovereign. It was the first earl who spent all his princely fortune in the wars of King Charles the Martyr;--nor would he surrender his castles of Caerlaverock and Thrieve, till he had received his majesty's own letters commanding him to do so. It may be a bold speech for me who am but a servant--though, I am proud to say, a trusted one--but I think a young lady should esteem herself honoured to ally herself with one descended from such worthy parentage." The Lady Winifred sighed: she also set a high value upon an honourable and noble lineage; that a woman should match herself beneath her station appeared to her a shameful degradation. The idea of a Jacobite intermarrying with a Whigamoor was as revolting to her imagination as to Rachael Evans's; yet she would fain have learned something more of her future husband's character, his age, and his appearance. "But, Evans," she replied, "it sometimes happens that persons of noble birth are mean and sordid in their minds, and such that it would be difficult to love and honour them, as a wife should love and honour her husband, and as I have heard you say my mother loved and honoured my father. Oh! I could tell you a sad tale which one of our nuns has often told to me, how a friend of hers was married to a great duke, who was of the oldest and noblest family in France." "And was he not noble in mind, as such a great person should ever be?"