ed was the epithet one thought of when looking at the
portrait of the man whose deeds were written in his country's history.

It was an epithet Mary Gray would not have thought of. Indeed, she
stared at the hero in fascinated awe, but would not have known how to
express an opinion regarding his looks. Fortunately, Lady Anne did not
wait for an answer to her question--had not, perhaps, ever intended that
it should be answered.

"It is very like," she went on. "Half Greek god, half fanatic. He led
his charges with Bible words on his lips. He spent the night before a
battle in prayer and fasting. He was as stern as John Knox, and as sweet
as Francis de Sales. The only time his light deserted him was when he
married Matilda Stewart. We were all in love with him. I was, although I
ought to have had sense, being ten years his senior and a widow. He
picked the worst of the bunch. Luckily, he could get away from Matilda,
for he was always fighting somewhere, and perhaps he never found out. He
kept his simplicity to the day he died. Some people thought he married
Matilda because she was one of the Stewart heiresses, and the Drummonds
were as poor as church mice. They didn't know him. It was more likely
he'd marry her because she was plain, with a face like a horse, and was
head over ears in love with him. I will say that for Matilda. She was
desperately in love with her husband, although no one would believe now
that she had ever been in love with anybody."

Lady Drummond delayed about coming to her guests. Lady Anne tapped an
impatient small foot on the floor.

"She's heckling someone now--take my word for it," she said.

Then her face wrinkled up, shrewdly humorous.

"What are you thinking, child?" she asked. "Thinking of how oddly we in
the world talk of the friends we go to visit? I don't trouble the Court
much. But I am interested in Gerald's boy. I should like to know how he
is going to turn out. Not much of her Ladyship in him, I fancy."

However, there was no question of Mary's judging her benefactress; and
Lady Anne smiled as she noticed that the girl had not heard her
question, and watched the innocent, tender, worshipping look with which
she was gazing at Sir Gerald's portrait. The smile faded off into a
sigh. "_Ah, le beau temps passe!_" The expression on Mary's face
recalled to Lady Anne the one romantic passion of her life, which had
come to her after widowhood had put an end to a marriage in which esteem
an