"This is sad—very sad, indeed!" he muttered.
"By the handwriting, Rohallion, and by the crest on the ring——"
"A lily, stalked and leaved, rising from a coronet."
"Yes."
"Well, Winny?"
"I should say they must have been people of figure and fashion—of good quality, at least."
"An old fashioned phrase that, and going out now, like our fathers' swords and our mothers' hoops; call them aristocrats—eh, Winny?"
"Undoubtedly, and under suspicion, too, by the tenor of the poor lady's letter."
"'Josephine,'" said he, reading the inscription upon the ring; "why, that is the name of the widow Beauharnais, who three or four years ago married the First Consul to escape the guillotine! You must preserve these relics with care, Winny; and as for the poor bairn, Rohallion must be his home till we find his mother, a task very unlikely to be accomplished, if ever at all, in these times, when France is at war with all the world, and her scaffolds are drenched daily with the blood of women, children, and priests, as well as of brave and loyal gentlemen. But into no better hands than ours, Winny, could this poor waif of misfortune have fallen. He is the child of a faithful royalist soldier, too—we must always remember that."
Like his worthy wife, Lord Rohallion inherited with his blood a strong dash of Jacobitism, thus his sympathies were all with the humbled royalty of France.