The confession was tantamount to a request that her new friend would not leave her. The most determined Nimrod could scarcely have abandoned a lady who thus placed herself under his charge, and Walter Maxwell, with his passionless exterior, had a good deal of that manly generosity in his composition, which warms at once to the unprotected and the weak. Instead of toiling after the whole company, then, on a tired horse, behold him riding quietly through beautiful woods, by the side of a young lady, whose peace of mind seemed to depend on his keeping his hand on her bridle rein. People soon become acquainted when thus associated. Mary Carmichael, with a colour much heightened from a variety of causes, and her rich brown hair disordered by her gallop, had never looked prettier in her life; whilst a glance or two shot at her protector from under her riding-hat satisfied her that he was a gentleman of good nature and lineage, also that she had remarked him more than once before, when fulfilling his duties as a guardsman about the court. Before they had ridden a mile, he had told her his name and all about himself. ‘A Maxwell!’ exclaimed the young lady, whose apprehensions were by this time considerably soothed. ‘I ought to have known you for a Maxwell at once. You’ve got the frank brow, and the ready hand, and the silent tongue of the Maxwells.’ Here she checked herself with a laugh and blush, whereat her companion laughed and coloured a little too. ‘Why, we are kinsfolk at that rate,’ she added, courteously. ‘My mother’s niece married a Maxwell of the Den, and they are a branch of the Terreagles Maxwells, and so are you.’ ‘I have left home so long,’ answered Walter, gravely, ‘I cannot count my kin; and yet I will take your word for it. I should think the better of myself,’ he added with a smile, ‘to have a right to call you cousin.’ The archer rarely smiled; when he did, his usually stern features softened and lighted up almost into beauty. The change was not unmarked by the maid-of-honour. ‘A Carmichael never failed a kinsman,’ said she, and her voice shook a little, while her soft eyes gleamed;--‘or the old tower would be looking down still upon Dumfries, and there would be more than a blackened arch, and a few mounds of grass standing by the hearth-stone, where my father once received King James. Well, Sir Archer, you have done a cousinly deed for me at least to-day.’ Perhaps she expected he would make some acknowledgment of his good fortune in the opportunity, but Maxwell rode on in silence. A French gallant would have overwhelmed her with eloquence, and few men but would have hazarded a few compliments, however trifling. She scarcely seemed offended, nevertheless. Her mute companion was absorbed in a brown study, thinking how well she looked in her riding-gear. It may be that her woman’s intuition told her as much.