“The evening before the expected battle he called at my mother's, still the spot of peculiar attraction whenever a moment of leisure allowed him the indulgence of his warmest and tenderest feelings. She candidly expressed her fears for his safety, knowing the dangerous post he would occupy, and his fearless intrepidity. She charged him to remember how many hearts would throb with deep interest for him on that eventful day, and concluded by hoping that discretion would temper his courage. He replied with restrained emotion, ‘I hope, dear madam, I am not insensible to your regard, and that of many kind friends; but there is one whose interest and sympathy I would rather win than the world besides.’ He looked towards Morna, but she was gone. He followed her retreating footsteps to her favorite alcove. ‘Morna,’ he said, assuming the manner of their childhood's freedom, ‘I have heard you say, courage should be your second requisite in a hero. I come to ask a token from you as an incentive to valor to-morrow.’ ‘Would you desire a higher,’ she answered, ‘than the cause of your country? Oh, Alfred, it is not your honor or courage that is in danger, but your life.’ ‘Then give me this bright tress, which has escaped from its bondage, to remind me that you are among those who care for my safety. It will be the first and brightest charm my heart ever wore.’ Morna spoke not: how could she? But her lover read the confession of her heart in the ‘many-colored Iris’ which filled her eye. You may imagine the scene that followed, when the fervor and faith of young hearts are pledged on the eve of doubtful battle. The hour of separation came, and Percy was taking his leave of her he loved best, with a countenance of hope unclouded by doubt or fear. He whispered to Morna, in going, ‘Remember the token, the talisman of protection and favor to the knight without fear and without reproach.’ ‘Noble Percy!’ exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, ‘you were never formed to wear the chain of slavery.’ Morna, too, felt proud of her lover; but in the moment of her exultation, she thought of the perils to which his life must be exposed, and the dark omen of dread dimmed the bright star of her destiny. My mother, while she evinced the warm sympathy which all the circumstances of the newly awakened feelings in her niece's bosom were calculated to inspire, endeavored to calm them by pointing to the bright side of the picture, and urging her to look forward with patient hope to the probably successful issue. But Mammy Marget, who felt, perhaps, quite as much in whatever distressed her young mistress, with the characteristic propensity of narrow-minded ignorance, sought to lay the blame of her tears on somebody, and who so probably the cause as Percy. {493} ‘Mas Alfred, he's always so violent, he must be the most foremost of any, no place will do for him but the hottest. Why not put some of the raggamuffins, as the British