Her ambitious vision was disturbed by the crowd rushing forward; the gates were thronged with people of every age and sex, and Wallace himself appeared on his white charger, with his helmet off, bowing and smiling upon the populace. There was a mild effulgence in his eye; a divine benevolence in his countenance, as his parted lips showed the brightness of his smile, which seemed to speak of happiness within, of joy to all around. She hastily snatched a chaplet of flowers form her head, and threw it from the window. Wallace looked up; his brow and his smile were then directed to her! but they were altered. The moment he met the congratulation of her eager eyes, he remembered what would have been the soft welcome of his Marion's under the like circumstance! But that tender eye was closed--that ear was shut, to whom he would have wished these plaudits to have given rapture--and they were now as nothing to him. The countess saw not what was passing in his mind, but kissing her hand to him, disappeared from the window when he entered the palace. Another eye beside Lady Mar's had witnessed the triumphant entry of Wallace. Triumphant in the true sense of the word; for he came a victor over the hearts of men; he came, not attended by his captives won in the war, but by the people he had blessed, by throngs calling him preserver, father, friend, and prince! By every title which can inspire the soul of man with the happy consciousness of fulfilling his embassy here below. Helen was this witness. She had passed the long interval, since she had seen Wallace, in the state of one in a dream. The glance had been so transient, that every succeeding hour seemed to lessen the evidence of her senses that she had really beheld him. It appeared impossible to her that the man whom her thoughts had hitherto dwelt on as the widowed husband of Marion, as the hero whom sorrow had wholly dedicated to patriotism and to Heaven, should ever awaken in her breast feelings which would seem to break like a sacrilegious host upon the holy consecration of his. Once she had contemplated this idea with the pensive impressions of one leaning over the grave of a hero; and she could then turn as if emerging from the glooms of sepulchral monuments to upper day, to the image of her unknown knight! she could then blamelessly recollect the matchless graces of his figure! the noble soul that breathed from his every word and action; the sweet, though thoughtful, serenity that sat on his brow! "There," whispered she to herself, "are the lofty meditations of a royal mind, devising the freedom of his people. When that is effected, how will the perfect sunshine break out from that face! Ah! how blest must Scotland be under his reign, when all will be light, virtue, and joy!" Bliss hovered like an angel over the image of this imaginary Bruce; while sorrow, in mourning weeds, seemed ever dropping tears, when any circumstance recalled that of the real Wallace.