"Gentle and loving!—so are the bear or the tigress to their cubs; but their fierce nature still remains."
"Remember that she you speak of is my mother, lady," said Florence, colouring with vexation.
"Pardon me—I speak but from report."
"I long, too, to see honest old Roger of the Westmains, with his white beard and hale nut-brown visage—my tutor in the science of defence, he who taught me to handle sword and dagger, arquebuse and pike, as if I had come into the world cap-a-pie; and next there is Father John of Tranent, the kind old vicar, who was wont in the long nights of winter to take me on his knee, and tell me such wondrous tales of Arthur's round table, of William Wallace, of Alexander, and of Hector—the prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer, and how they never fail to be fulfilled—the story of Red Ettin, the giant who had three heads, and of the Gyre Carlin, the mother-witch of all our Scottish witches, till my hair stood on end with terror of men so bold and people so weird and strange. I long to see my old nurse Maud, who was wont to rock me to sleep in the old turret, and sing me the 'Flowers of the Forest,' or the sweet old song of 'Gynkertoun;' and I long once more to find myself under the moss-covered roof of the old tower, where my mother waits and, it may be, weeps for me—that grim old mansion, with its barred gate, its dark loopholes, and narrow stairs, whose steps have been hallowed by time, and by the feet of generations of my forefathers who are now gone to God, and whose bones sleep under the shadow of His cross in the green kirkyard of Tranent."
"In short," said the lady, with a very decided pout on her beautiful red lips, "you are tired of dwelling here, and long to be gone."
"Here—ah, madam, say not so! Here, here with you, could I dwell for ever; but I have beloved ties and stern duties, that demand my presence elsewhere."
The dark-haired girl smiled and drooped her eyelids, while her confusion increased; for affection soon ripened in young hearts in those old days of nature and of impulse, before well-bred folks had learned to veil alike their hatred and their love under the same calm and impenetrable exterior.
The ice was now fairly broken, but their conversation became broken too.
After a pause, during which Florence had succeeded in capturing the little hand of the unknown, and kissing it at least thrice.
"You mean still to conceal your name from me!" said he with a tone of tender reproach.