ined I will assert his real rights, when he
is in adversity, like a loyal one. Let courtiers and sycophants flatter
power and desert misfortune; I will neither do the one nor the other."

"And if you are determined to act what my feeble judgment must still term
rashly, why give yourself the pain of this untimely meeting?"

"Were it not enough to answer," said Lord Evandale, "that, ere rushing on
battle, I wished to bid adieu to my betrothed bride? Surely it is judging
coldly of my feelings, and showing too plainly the indifference of your
own, to question my motive for a request so natural."

"But why in this place, my lord," said Edith; and why with such peculiar
circumstances of mystery?"

"Because," he replied, putting a letter into her hand, "I have yet
another request, which I dare hardly proffer, even when prefaced by these
credentials."

In haste and terror, Edith glanced over the letter, which was from her
grandmother.

"My dearest childe," such was its tenor in style and spelling, "I
never more deeply regretted the reumatizm, which disqualified me
from riding on horseback, than at this present writing, when I would
most have wished to be where this paper will soon be, that is at
Fairy Knowe, with my poor dear Willie's only child. But it is the
will of God I should not be with her, which I conclude to be the
case, as much for the pain I now suffer, as because it hath now not
given way either to cammomile poultices or to decoxion of wild
mustard, wherewith I have often relieved others. Therefore, I must
tell you, by writing instead of word of mouth, that, as my young
Lord Evandale is called to the present campaign, both by his honour
and his duty, he hath earnestly solicited me that the bonds of holy
matrimony be knitted before his departure to the wars between you
and him, in implement of the indenture formerly entered into for
that effeck, whereuntill, as I see no raisonable objexion, so I
trust that you, who have been always a good and obedient childe,
will not devize any which has less than raison. It is trew that the
contrax of our house have heretofore been celebrated in a manner
more befitting our Rank, and not in private, and with few witnesses,
as a thing done in a corner. But it has been Heaven's own free will,
as well as those of the kingdom where we live, to take away from us
our estate,