"Now, by the souls of my ancestors who are in Heaven!" exclaimed Dame Alison, striking her long cane fiercely on the paved floor of the hall, "I love the manner of wooing, and thus may Scotland and England ever woo each other, with hands gloved and helmets barred; for I hate the accursed match, and would rather see the child Mary Stuart strangled in the cradle, and her sceptre become the heritage of Arran, than live to be the bride of the apostate Henry's son and the crowned queen of our hereditary enemies! And now, since we are talking of foemen, saw ye aught in your gowk-like rambling of the hell-brood who bide in the barred tower on yonder lea?"
"I did, mother," sighed Florence.
"Preston himself, perhaps."
"Yea, mother; thrice."
"Hath manhood gone out of the land! And ye parted, as ye met, sakeless and bloodless?"
"As you see me, mother," replied Florence, overwhelmed by the bitterness of thoughts he dared not utter.
"Saints of God!" she exclaimed, and raised her clenched hand as if she would have smote him on his sad but handsome face; then suddenly repressing the fierce impulse, she turned abruptly and left the hall.
Florence thought of the sweet merry eyes of Madeline Home; and all their memory was requisite to render life endurable with such a welcome to his mother's hearth.