“And I am engaged to play billiards with my uncle,” said Adelaide, rising with a blush of indignation.

“Shall we have some music, then?  Can you bear to listen to our croakings after the warbling of your Italian nightingales?” asked Lady Emily.

“I should like very much to hear you sing,” answered her brother, with an air of the most perfect indifference.

“Come then, Mary, do you be the one to ’untwist the chains that tie the hidden soul of harmony.’  Give us your Scotch Exile, pray?  It is tolerably appropriate to the occasion, though an English one would have been still more so; but, as you say, there is nothing in this country to make a song about.”

Mary would rather have declined, but she saw a refusal would displease her cousin; and she was not accustomed to consult her own inclination in such frivolous matters.  She therefore seated herself at the harp, and sang the following verses;—­

    THE EXILE.

    The weary wanderer may roam
    To seek for bliss in change of scene;
    Yet still the loved idea of home,
    And of the days he there has seen,

    Pursue him with a fond regret,
    Like rays from suns that long have set.

    “Tis not the sculptor’s magic art,
    “Tis not th’ heroic deeds of yore,
    That fill and gratify the heart. 
    No! ’tis affection’s tender lore—­
    The thought of friends, and love’s first sigh,
    When youth, and hope, and health were nigh.

    What though on classic ground we tread,
    What though we breathe a genial air—­
    Can these restore the bliss that’s fled? 
    Is not remembrance ever there? 
    Can any soil protect from grief,
    Or any air breathe soft relief?

    No! the sick soul, that wounded flies
    From all its early thoughts held dear,
    Will more some gleam of memory prize,
    That draws the long-lost treasure near;
    And warmly presses to its breast
    The very thought that mars its rest.

    Some mossy stone, some torrent rude,
    Some moor unknown to worldly ken,
    Some weeping birches, fragrant wood,
    Or some wild roebuck’s fern-clad glen;—­
    Yes! these his aching heart delight,
    These bring his country to his sight.

Ere the song was ended Lord Lindore had sauntered away to the billiard-room, singing, “Oh!  Jiove Omnipotente!” and seemingly quite unconscious that any attentions were due from him in return.  But there, even Adelaide’s charms failed to attract, in spite of the variety of graceful movements practised before him—­the beauty of the extended arm, the majestic step, and the exclamations of the enchanting voice Lord Lindore kept his station by the fire, in a musing attitude, from which he was only roused occasionally by the caresses of his dog.  At supper it was still worse.  He placed himself by Mary, and when he spoke, it was only of Scotland.