"Did the heralds not add that he granted them a coat of augmentation to their arms?" said Margaret, with hate in her eye, and the smile of a devil on her lovely lip;--"a headsman's axe and block, all bloody and proper! Well, well; so be it. We'll powder these new-fangled coronets with tears and the dust of death ere another yule be past--please Heaven, we shall!" "'Tis said, too, that the king is about to be married to a fair lady of Flanders." "This child!--who--who?" asked the ladies together. "I wot not," said Maud; and the girls laughed loudly. "Little Maggie Lauder of the Bass would suit him better, in years at least," said the countess, as she caressed the lint white locks of Sir Alan's youngest daughter, a girl of some nine years or so. "In sooth, cousin, you have a rare stock of news." "Countess, I have more still." "More?" "The heritable sheriff of Perth, Sir William Ruthven of that ilk, accompanied by a party of the king's guard, have marched into Athole, and there captured John Gorm Stewart." "A friend and ally of my husband, who had a message from him not ten days ago--he captured him, say you?" "Ay, and slew him." "John of Athole slain?" "Yes, on the north Inch of Perth, with thirty of his followers; but Ruthven was also killed, and MacLellan and Gray, the commanders of the King's Guard, were wounded." "The fools! to fight each other, when both were allies of ours; for this sheriff of Perth has a daughter wedded to George Douglas, of Leswalt, here in Galloway. So Gray was wounded--and the jesting MacLellan, too?" On first hearing these names, the hitherto listless Murielle started, and turned to Maud Douglas; but feared to ask the question that seemed to burn her tongue. "Is aught wrong, sister, that you start thus?" asked Margaret, half contemptuously. "No--why do you ask?" said Murielle timidly. "I thought a gnat had stung you." "Oh, it was Andrew Gray, of Balgarno, who was wounded," said Maud good-naturedly, as she turned in haste to Murielle, whose anxiety she wished to relieve. "Was your father sure of this?" asked the countess. "The Provost of Dumfries had the surest tidings." Margaret smiled bitterly at her pale sister. "Alas!" thought the latter, in her heart, "_he_ is not spoken of. Oh, can he be dead, that others have led where he was wont to lead?" After a pause, "Murielle," said the countess, with some asperity, "if you will not work with us, take your harp, and sing. Occupation will at times divert the mind, even from its most bitter thoughts. Please to give us the ballad of 'Sir Hugh le Blonde.'" The ladies urged her to do so, but she replied briefly and wearily,-- "Under favour, I cannot sing." "You cannot sing?" reiterated the countess, pausing in her work, and gazing at Murielle with her full black eyes, above which hung the wavy fringe of her absurdly lofty horned head-dress. "I cannot sing that ballad--at least, just now." "And wherefore?"