r age, especially if
possessed of the fatal gift of beauty. But as thy charms, to speak the
language of an idle world, have attached to thee a lover of such high
rank, so I know that thy virtue and wisdom will maintain the influence
over the Prince's mind which thy beauty hath acquired."

"Father," replied Catharine, "the Prince is a licentious gallant, whose
notice of me tends only to my disgrace and ruin. Can you, who seemed
but now afraid that I acted imprudently in entering into an ordinary
exchange of courtesies with one of my own rank, speak with patience of
the sort of correspondence which the heir of Scotland dares to fix
upon me? Know that it is but two nights since he, with a party of his
debauched followers, would have carried me by force from my father's
house, had I not been rescued by that same rash spirited Henry Smith,
who, if he be too hasty in venturing on danger on slight occasion, is
always ready to venture his life in behalf of innocence or in resistance
of oppression. It is well my part to do him that justice."

"I should know something of that matter," said the monk, "since it was
my voice that sent him to your assistance. I had seen the party as I
passed your door, and was hastening to the civil power in order to raise
assistance, when I perceived a man's figure coming slowly towards me.
Apprehensive it might be one of the ambuscade, I stepped behind the
buttresses of the chapel of St. John, and seeing from a nearer view
that it was Henry Smith, I guessed which way he was bound, and raised my
voice, in an exhortation which made him double his speed."

"I am beholden to you, father," said Catharine; "but all this, and the
Duke of Rothsay's own language to me, only show that the Prince is a
profligate young man, who will scruple no extremities which may promise
to gratify an idle passion, at whatever expense to its object. His
emissary, Ramorny, has even had the insolence to tell me that my father
shall suffer for it if I dare to prefer being the wife of an honest man
to becoming the loose paramour of a married prince. So I see no other
remedy than to take the veil, or run the risk of my own ruin and my poor
father's. Were there no other reason, the terror of these threats,
from a man so notoriously capable of keeping his word, ought as much to
prevent my becoming the bride of any worthy man as it should prohibit me
from unlatching his door to admit murderers. Oh, good father, what a lot
is mine!