Southennan. By the time they had reached the gate, it may be said that the Italian had wormed himself a good deal into his intimacy; but still the wariness of Southennan's national character prevented him from explaining more of the object of his visit to Holyrood House, than that he was in search of the Count Dufroy or Chatelard.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property foredoes itself,

And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures."

SHAKSPEARE.

IN ascending the great stairs of the Palace, much to the delight of Southennan they met Adelaide and the Lady Mary Livingstone descending with a little dog held by a riband, to walk in the gardens. Rizzio being acquainted with the ladies stopped to speak with them, treating, in the badinage which passed between them, the visit of the divines with even less respect than he had spoken of it to our hero. The Lady Mary Livingstone was still more indignant at their rudeness. With Rizzio it was ridicule and contempt: but with her, anger mingled with dread. Adelaide, who had not seen the reverend gentlemen, took no part in the conversation, and her silence, which was purely owing to that circumstance, appeared to Southennan delicate and becoming. Before they separated, Rizzio introduced Southennan to them in a light and easy manner, as if it were only to get rid of the embarrassment of allowing him to stand in silence beside them.

In a state of ordinary feeling, the distant civility with which the introduction was accepted by the ladies, would have excited no attention on the part of Southennan; but in the warmth of the sentiment which he had cherished from the first sight of Adelaide, it seemed as if her coldness was marked and repulsive. This notion, the mere offspring of his own interested imagination, served him for a new topic to think of, concerning her. He would have been glad had Rizzio proposed to return with them to the garden; but he had himself spoken so anxiously of his own wish to see the Count Dufroy or Chatelard, that the Italian could not, in civility, propose to accompany the ladies;

and thus it happened, that after parting from them, on the stairs, he ascended with his companion, dissatisfied with himself, to the gallery, where they found the two gentlemen, with other courtiers, French and Scottish, assembled.

On seeing Southennan both the Count and Chatelard came towards him. They had been speaking together; and the sharp eye of Rizzio discerned that their conversation had been something more lively than the topics of the day were likely to have suggested. It was even so. The Count had been endeavouring to sound his young countryman respecting Adelaide, and had heard with some degree of surprise the fervour of attachment with which he affected to regard her. At the same time it did not displease him; for Chatelard was wellborn, highly accomplished, and possessed of talents which well qualified him to succeed in diplomatic trusts. Accordingly the Count did not repress his strong declarations, but he did not give him any encouragement: so that although their conversation had been earnest and animated, it yet was in no degree conclusive.

After the customary interchange of the compliments of the morning, Southennan informed the Count that he had been in troduced by Rizzio to Adelaide, and in saying this, he threw his eyes inadvertently towards Chatelard, as if he expected the intelligence would produce some effect upon him. The Count did the same thing, and both felt something like disappointment, at observing one so enamoured as Chatelard professed to be, hear it with evident indifference. Rizzio, however, the keenest-sighted of the three, without being aware of the state of the ground on which he stood, began to rally Chatelard on his want of gallantry towards Adelaide.

Chatelard, conscious of the truth, and apprehensive that his passion for the Queen might also have been discovered, looked a little confused; which Rizzio observing, said, with a particular shrewdness in his eye,

"But you were too much engaged in your own game of cross purposes, to be aware of how much the onlookers were interested in your play."

Neither Southennan nor the Count understood the insinuation: it was not so, however, with Chatelard, who became still more confused. He could not, indeed, conceal from himself that his devotion to the Queen had been detected by the acute and sagacious Italian.

But it was not expedient, in the views and purposes of Rizzio, to appear so well acquainted with matters of that kind as

he really was. He had not yet established the fulcrum for his own elevation; he was but casting about for materials to construct it with. The study of character, especially the weaknesses of those about him, constituted, at this period, his principal employment; and the confusion of Chatelard assured him that it would not be difficult to find a spring to render him subservient to his designs. Without, therefore, affecting even to suspect the secret of Chatelard, he took him familiarly by the arm, and left the Count and Southennan together.

"Let us go," said the Count, "and join Adelaide in the garden. I wish you to become better acquainted with her; she is a creature of every amiable quality, and I'm afraid regards, with more kindness, that Chatelard, than he deserves; for though he speaks of her with more warmth than I think true affection would prompt, I should almost be sorry she preferred him and yet, neither in his birth, person, nor circumstances, is there aught which could be reasonably objected to. His love for her, I doubt, springs from some calculation of the agency he might convert her to."

:

"It is curious,' replied Southennan, "that I should have formed the same opinion. On our first acquaintance he was all flames and darts. It may, however, be the nature of your countrymen, Count, to speak lightly of those they love; but it is not in the custom of humanity to speak unnecessarily, which Chatelard, certainly, too much affects. He seemed to wince a little at what the Italian said; but I did not very well comprehend the meaning of it."

By this time they had reached the bottom of the stairs, and were turning towards the garden, when Hughoc made his appearance with a note for his master.

"I was boun'," said the boy as he delivered it, " to fin' you sleeping or waking; for it cam frae the Queen's chamberlain, wi' an order that by nae manner o' means was it to be stayed or hindered in the delivery."

The note was a command, conveyed through the chamberlain, for the young laird to attend the public Reception that night in the palace. His name had on his arrival been reported to the Queen, at a time when some of the old nobles were with her; and the Earl of Morton being among them, recollected the affair of the Solway Moss, in which Southennan's father had been made a prisoner, and spoke of him in terms of much commendation, hoping the scion would prove worthy of the stock orders were in consequence given to command his attendance at the Reception.

ON entering the garden, the Count and Southennan saw the ladies at some distance; but as several brilliant groups and other parties were interspersed among the walks and flower plats of the parterre, the Count, not partaking of the eagerness of his young friend to reach Adelaide, conducted him towards her by a circuitous route.

In those days the gardens of Holyrood House consisted of a wide space of several acres, enclosed by a high, rough stone wall. They were laid out in a stiff, artificial manner, with holly hedges and yew trees cut into different forms, such as peacocks and unicorns, lions and eagles. The flowers interspersed among the shrubs were then esteemed rare and beautiful, but they consisted of what are now the commonest kinds. The flower beds rose over each other in low successive terraces, and the centre of the garden was so built up in this manner, and crested with a yew-tree shapen into the form of an imperial crown, that it might, without much exaggeration, have been compared to an ornamental pie. Two fountains, at the distance of a hundred and fifty yards, played at each end of the mound, and seats were neatly disposed in different parts on the lawns and beside the fountains. The whole was trimly kept, and for the rudeness of the climate and the age, was not in its effect without beauty.

On reaching the ladies, the Count addressed himself particularly to the Lady Mary Livingstone, leaving Southennan to make the best of his own way with Adelaide. But she maintained towards him the same coldness and indifference which he had experienced at his first introduction. Their conversation, in consequence, was abrupt and constrained, until, as it were, almost by an accident Southennan spoke of her father. "And do you know him?" enquired Adelaide, in a tone of tenderness.

Southennan replied by recounting in what manner he had

met him on the moors of Renfrewshire, and the subsequent incidents of their journey to Edinburgh. The interest which she took in the narrative, although not of that strong kind which more familiar affection would have inspired, yet showed a filial regard for the dangers and misfortunes of her parent, natural and touching to a pathetic degree.

Upon this thesis Southennan began to lay the foundation of his love. He perceived that she was aware of some prejudice or antipathy on the part of the Count Dufroy, to move in the remission of Knock whinnie's outlawry, and it seemed to him that he would best promote his own object, by evincing the sincerity of his desire to procure the pardon of her father. In this, though acting from the dictates of his passion and considerations of humanity, he chose precisely the course that a man of more libertine knowledge would have taken to engage her attention. He lamented in terms that awakened her sympathy the original doubt which hung upon the misfortunes of her mother, of which she had heard for the first time that day, but not with so many particular incidents as Southennan's version of the narrative contained. And he dwelt in a more especial manner on the perils and privations to which her father was exposed. Without any intentional exaggeration of the kindness he had himself shown to the Outlaw, he also spoke of it in terms that produced an impression in his own favour, while it was calculated to excite a stronger filial interest in Adelaide. Thus, an effect arose from their conversation which the Count could not have anticipated.

Adelaide became tenderly alive to the hazards of her father; and though no image was associated in her mind with the feelings which the name of parent and the story of Southennan awakened, she yet found herself, as it were, drawn by numberless fibres towards some one whom she pictured to herself for her father.

The Count Dufroy, as he walked on before them, with the Lady Mary Livingstone, engaged in light and general topics befitting the time, looked frequently back to Southennan and Adelaide, gratified to see them apparently so much interested in each other. His affection for her had been truly of the purest parental kind. In her childhood she had acquired a place in his affections at a time when his heart wanted something to be kind to. Her simple character and extreme loveliness as she grew up, increased the influence of that fond and early charm, until his regard, without one tinge of passion, settled into that mild affection which hath its gratifications in