-Moor, should make it his first act of restored monarchy to
complete the destruction of our property, already well-nigh ruined in
the royal cause, and to persecute me his widow!"

"You astonish me, madam!" said the Lady Peveril. "It cannot be, that
you--that you, the wife of the gallant, the faithful, the murdered
Earl--you, Countess of Derby, and Queen in Man--you, who took on you
even the character of a soldier, and seemed a man when so many men
proved women--that you should sustain evil from the event which has
fulfilled--exceeded--the hopes of every faithful subject--it cannot be!"

"Thou art as simple, I see, in this world's knowledge as ever, my fair
cousin," answered the Countess. "This restoration, which has given
others security, has placed me in danger--this change which relieved
other Royalists, scarce less zealous, I presume to think, than I--has
sent me here a fugitive, and in concealment, to beg shelter and
assistance from you, fair cousin."

"From me," answered the Lady Peveril--"from me, whose youth your
kindness sheltered--from the wife of Peveril, your gallant Lord's
companion in arms--you have a right to command everything; but, alas!
that you should need such assistance as I can render--forgive me, but it
seems like some ill-omened vision of the night--I listen to your words
as if I hoped to be relieved from their painful import by awaking."

"It is indeed a dream--a vision," said the Countess of Derby; "but
it needs no seer to read it--the explanation hath been long since
given--Put not your faith in princes. I can soon remove your
surprise.--This gentleman, your friend, is doubtless _honest?_"

The Lady Peveril well knew that the Cavaliers, like other factions,
usurped to themselves the exclusive denomination of the _honest_ party,
and she felt some difficulty in explaining that her visitor was not
honest in that sense of the word.

"Had we not better retire, madam?" she said to the Countess, rising, as
if in order to attend her. But the Countess retained her seat.

"It was but a question of habit," she said; "the gentleman's principles
are nothing to me, for what I have to tell you is widely blazed, and I
care not who hears my share of it. You remember--you must have heard,
for I think Margaret Stanley would not be indifferent to my fate--that
after my husband's murder at Bolton, I took up the standard which he
never dropped until his death, and displayed it with my own hand in our
Sovereig