Gay, handsome, and richly dressed, he leaned upon the high back of her chair, and insisted on conversing with her, flattering himself that he was making considerable progress, though the memory of Gray's sad loving eyes, and of his lover's kiss, yet lingered in her mind; but she was too well bred to treat the duke as he deserved; too gentle and too timid to repel him; and, moreover, too proud to acknowledge the footing upon which he affected to place himself with her--a position on which she was daily rallied by the countess and her ladies of the tabourette, until her little heart waxed wroth. There were times also, when Albany, piqued by a coldness and reserve that were new to him, actually nursed himself into the conviction that he was desperately in love with this little beauty--if love in a heart so _roué_ were a possibility. Near them sat Count Ludwig, affecting to be entirely occupied with a bloodhound, which the Dyck Graf had presented to the countess. It was a spotless dog, of "Black St. Hubert's breed," but _white_ as snow, and was named Souyllard, after that famous hound of the prince of Lorraine, which is thus extolled in the "Noble Art of Venerie:" "My name first came from holy Hubert's race; Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace." The reckless Ludwig, as he gazed on the beauty of Murielle, began to conceive some very daring schemes on his own account, as his armed Brabanciones, to the number of some hundreds, lurked in the Peel morass and woods on the other side of the Waal. He allowed his imagination to run riot, and while affecting to caress the powerful hound on the one hand, and converse with the abbot of Tongland on the other, he saw before him only the sweet girl's gentle eyes, which drooped, and her little coral mouth, which paled, whenever his bold glance fell on her. The abbot and she exchanged smiles from time to time. He was full of commiseration and alarm for Sir Patrick Gray, whose preceptor he had been, and he was thinking of that peaceful and pleasant time in Tongland Abbey, when he was wont to take him once daily to read the works of St. Augustine, or a page of the Gospels in old monkish Latin. Each of these stood under an iron grating in the church, where a leaf of them was turned daily for the behoof of the learned or the pious; but Gray and MacLellan, like wayward boys, to get rid of the task which bored them, stole the key of the grille, and threw it into the Dee.