of misfortune.  It was curious to remark the different forms in which affliction appeared in different characters, The queen, in loud sobs and repeated wailing, at one time deplored her own misery; at others, accused her husband of rashness and madness.  Why had he not taken her advice and remained quiet?  Why could he not have been contented with the favor of Edward and a proud, fair heritage?  What good did he hope to get for himself by assuming the crown of so rude and barren a land as Scotland?  Had she not told him he was but a summer king, that the winter would soon blight his prospects and nip his budding hopes; and had she not proved herself wiser even than he was himself? and then she would suddenly break off in these reproaches to declare that, if he were a prisoner, she would go to him; she would remain with him to the last; she would prove 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.