Maxwell found himself in high favour with Mary, and it is not strange that he should have been devoted heart and soul to her interests. He persuaded himself that he was loyal to his sovereign for her own sake, and ignored with considerable determination that Mistress Carmichael had any influence whatever over his sentiments. That young lady’s behaviour at this juncture was of a nature to make an admirer sufficiently uncomfortable. We remember to have heard that there _are_ female dispositions on which the exercise of the affections has an irritating tendency, and to whom the dawning possibility of eventful thraldom is as agitating as it is inviting. These wild-birds, albeit they become when tamed the gentlest of domestic fowls, are sadly prone at first to beat their breasts against the cage, also to peck viciously at the caressing hand that would smooth their ruffled plumes. Whether it be that they entertain a feminine delight in any state of sentiment, argument, or fact involving a contradiction, or whether they indemnify themselves, whilst they can, for future docility, we profess ourselves incompetent to state; but the axiom seems to be sufficiently established, that the process of taming is often uncomfortable and hazardous, the result not always to be depended upon when complete. Mary Carmichael, in addition to her other qualifications, was a devoted Papist; Maxwell, it is needless to observe, a staunch Reformer. Religious feeling ran high at Holyrood. The Romish Church, a zealous advocate for proselytism at all times, has ever been most intolerant when losing ground; and perhaps no bigotry is so blind as a woman’s adherence to a sinking faith. Maxwell could not conscientiously look with approval on Mistress Carmichael’s rigid attendance at mass in the Chapel Royal. The maid-of-honour concealed neither her dislike nor her contempt for those who had abandoned the religion of their fathers, and the ritual of their sovereign. This alone was a fruitful source of irritation and ill-feeling between the lovers, if so they can be called; and when we add that the gentleman was of a haughty and reserved disposition, the soul of honesty and frankness, without the slightest experience in the ways of woman, and the lady as wilful, unjust, and self-tormenting as those reasonable beings usually become when thoroughly in earnest, it is superfluous to dwell upon the feelings likely to exist between such a pair, continually brooding over imaginary wrongs, and never for a moment out of each other’s minds. One scene, amongst many, may afford a specimen of the terms on which they stood.