"I think it is nae tale ata'," said Tam Craik: "If I coudna hae tauld a better tale than that, I wad never hae begun. I could now wager sax merks, and sax brass mowdiworts to boot, that the Gospel-friar is the man that shall be the first to thole the knife. And what for should he no? He'll make the best mart amang us." "I differ widely from you," said the poet, "with regard to the merits of the tale. I love the friar for telling it; and I love him ten times better for the part he took in the transaction. How I do admire the love that has no selfish flaw, no moiety of sense to prompt its aberrations! Should I ever get free from this vile pinnacle,--this grave in altitude,--I'll search the world for that dear child, and find her too, if in the world she be." "Alas! I have searched, and searched in vain," answered the friar. "It was so long before I knew of the mishap of my friend, and my darling child, that all memory of the transaction was lost. I would travel from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, to find out that dear, that beloved maiden; and could I find her I would yet put her in possession of the inheritance of her father. For I have instructed the heads of our order, and they are preserving it in their own hands as the patrimony of the orphan and the father-less." During the time of the friar's narrative, Delany had been sitting close by his knee in fixed and earnest attention; and at this time there chancing to be a pause in the conversation, she looked wistfully about, as if afraid she was going to commit herself by telling a lie. But there was such a beam of intelligence playing over her lovely countenance, that all the party fixed their eyes on her, as if watching with the deepest interest what she was going to say. "I have a confused dream of having heard something of this story before," said she: "but subsequent events had quite obliterated the traces of it from my memory, till this narrative renewed them: I think I can give you some intelligence of this lost maiden. You said she was called by her father's name. Do you recollect what that father of her's was called?" "Ay, that will I never forget while memory retains her seat in this repentant bosom," said the friar. "His name was Captain Jacques De-la-Veny." "The very same," said the maid. "Then do you know ought of this? Or did you ever see it before?"--and she took a small miniature from her bosom, holding it near to the friar's eye.