and hastily muffling me
in a mantle which was lying there, we passed the guards--threaded the
labyrinth of empty streets and courts, and reached our retired lodgings
without attracting the least attention.'

'I have often heard,' said Darsie, 'that a female, supposed to be a
man in disguise,--and yet, Lilias, you do not look very masculine,--had
taken up the champion's gauntlet at the present king's coronation, and
left in its place a gage of battle, with a paper, offering to accept the
combat, provided a fair field should be allowed for it. I have hitherto
considered it as an idle tale. I little thought how nearly I was
interested in the actors of a scene so daring. How could you have
courage to go through with it?' [See Note 9.]

'Had I had leisure for reflection,' answered his sister, 'I should have
refused, from a mixture of principle and of fear. But, like many people
who do daring actions, I went on because I had not time to think of
retreating. The matter was little known, and it is said the king had
commanded that it should not be further inquired into;--from prudence,
as I suppose, and lenity, though my uncle chooses to ascribe the
forbearance of the Elector of Hanover, as he calls him, sometimes to
pusillanimity, and sometimes to a presumptuous scorn of the faction who
opposes his title.'

'And have your subsequent agencies under this frantic enthusiast,' said
Darsie, 'equalled this in danger?'

'No--nor in importance,' replied Lilias; 'though I have witnessed much
of the strange and desperate machinations, by which, in spite of every
obstacle, and in contempt of every danger, he endeavours to awaken the
courage of a broken party. I have traversed, in his company, all England
and Scotland, and have visited the most extraordinary and contrasted
scenes; now lodging at the castles of the proud gentry of Cheshire and
Wales, where the retired aristocrats, with opinions as antiquated as
their dwellings and their manners, still continue to nourish Jacobitical
principles; and the next week, perhaps, spent among outlawed smugglers,
or Highland banditti. I have known my uncle often act the part of a
hero, and sometimes that of a mere vulgar conspirator, and turn himself,
with the most surprising flexibility, into all sorts of shapes to
attract proselytes to his cause.'

'Which, in the present day,' said Darsie, 'he finds, I presume, no easy
task.'

'So difficult,' said Lilias, 'that, I believe, he has, at differe