Woman, kind and affectionate woman, is ever more ready to confer an obligation on our sex than accept of one. Lady Jane arose without any hesitation, put the crown on the knight's head, and, with a most winning grace, raised him up, and said, "Gallant knight, thou wert born to conquer my countrymen and me; I yield my hand and with it my heart." The friar lost no time in joining their hands; he judged it best and safest to take women at their first words; and short time was it till the two were pronounced husband and wife, "and whom God hath joined let no man dare to put asunder. Amen!" said the friar, and bestowed on them an earnest blessing.--Isaac the curate expatiates largely on the greatness and goodness of this couple; how they extended their possessions, and were beloved on the Border. Their son, he says, was the famous Sir Robert of Eskdale, the warden of the marches, from whom the families of Thirlstane, Harden, and many other opulent houses are descended. No union could be more happy; and besides, it rendered the Lady Douglas the happiest of women, and Mary Kirkmichael the proudest. But to return to the scene in the gallery with the knights and their mistresses. The King and his nobles who accompanied the gallants into the apartment of the ladies, knowing nothing of the choices each had made, expected great amusement from compliances and non-compliances; and at all events, after so fair a beginning, a number of weddings to be the result. Every one of the successful knights expected the same thing; for it is a curious fact, which shows the duplicity of our character in a striking light, that, when the champions were all in the apartment together in the morning, some mentioned one lady as the flower of the land and of all present, some mentioned another, and so on. But no one ever mentioned the names either of _Delany_ or _Jane Howard_. Sir Charles indeed mentioned no name, but when each had named a pretended favourite with mighty encomiums, he only added, "I'll no say muckle; but there's ane that I rank aboon a' thae." The master of the ceremonies looked round to call the next champion to kneel; but, behold, he was not there! He called the next again. He was gone also! Every one of the knights had vanished, each thinking _himself_ slighted by the preference given to Sir Charles Scott, but none knowing that for his sake they were all slighted alike. The noblemen were all in the utmost consternation; the King became highly offended, and said "What is the meaning of this? Have these knights dared to desert their colours on the very eve of action? This is not only an affront put upon us, but upon our fair and noble visitors, of whose honour and feelings we are more jealous than of our own."