rove how much she idolized
him--her own, her brave, her noble Robert. And vain was every effort on
the part of her sisters-in-law and the Countess of Buchan, and other of
her friends, to mitigate these successive bursts of sorrow. The Lady
Seaton, of a stronger mind, yet struggled with despondency, yet strove
to hope, to believe all was not as overwhelming as had been described;
although, if rumor were indeed true, she had lost a husband and a son,
the gallant young Earl of Mar, whom she had trained to all noble deeds
and honorable thoughts, for he had been fatherless from infancy. Lady
Mary could forget her own deep anxieties, her own fearful forebodings,
silently and unobservedly to watch, to follow, to tend the Countess of
Buchan, whose marble cheek and lip, and somewhat sterner expression of
countenance than usual, alone betrayed the anxiety passing within, for
words it found not. She could share with her the task of soothing, of
cheering Agnes, whose young spirit lay crushed beneath this heavy blow.
She did not complain, she did not murmur, but evidently struggled to
emulate her mother's calmness, for she would bend over her frame and
endeavor to continue her embroidery. But those who watched her, marked
her frequent shudder, the convulsive sob, the tiny hands pressed closely
together, and then upon her eyes, as if to still their smarting throbs;
and Isoline, who sat in silence on a cushion at her feet, could catch
such low whispered words as these--

"Nigel, Nigel, could I but know thy fate! Dead, dead!--could I not die
with thee? Imprisoned, have I not a right to follow thee; to tend, to
soothe thee? Any thing, oh, any thing, but this horrible suspense! Alan,
my brother, thou too, so young, to die."

The morning of the second day brought other and less distressing rumors;
all had not fallen, all were not taken. There were tales of courage, of
daring gallantry, of mighty struggles almost past belief; but what were
they, even in that era of chivalry, to the heart sinking under
apprehensions, the hopes just springing up amidst the wild chaos of
thoughts to smile a moment, to be crushed 'neath suspense, uncertainty,
the next? Still the eager tones of conjecture, the faintest-spoken
whispers of renewed hope, were better than the dead stillness, the heavy
hush of despair.

And the queen's apartments, in which at sunset all her friends had
assembled, presented less decided sounds of mourning and of wail, than
the pre