"Probably not," returned Helen, "but it is valuable to me, and wherever
I lodge, I will thank you to put it into my apartment."
A mirror was now presented that she might see herself. She started at the load of jewels with which they had adorned her, and while tears filled her eyes, she mildly said:
"I am a mourner, and these ornaments must not be worn by me."
The ladies obeyed her wish to have them taken off, and with thoughts divided between her father and her father's friend, she was conducted toward the palfrey. Wallace approached her, and Bruce flew forward, with his usual haste, to assist her; but it was no longer the beautiful little page that met his view, the confidential and frank glance of a youthful brother—it was a lovely woman arrayed in all the charms of female apparel, trembling and blushing, as she again appeared as a woman before the eyes of the man she loved. Wallace sighed as he touched her hand, for there was something in her air which seemed to say, "I am not what I was a few minutes ago." It was the aspect of the world's austerity, the decorum of rank and situation—but not of the heart—that had never been absent from the conduct of Helen; had she been in the wilds of Africa, with no other companion than Wallace, still would those chaste reserves which lived in her soul have been there the guardian of her actions, for modesty was as much the attribute of her person, as magnanimity the character of her mind.
Her more distant air at this time was the effect of reflections while in the abbey where he had lodged her. She saw that the frank intercourse between them was to be interrupted by the forms of a court, and her manner insensibly assumed the demeanor she was so soon to wear. Bruce looked at her with delighted wonder. He had before admired her as beautiful, he now gazed on her as transcendently so. He checked himself in his swift step—he paused to look on her and Wallace, and contemplating them with sentiments of unmingled admiration, this exclamation unconsciously escaped him:
"How lovely!"
He could not but wish to see two such perfectly amiable and perfectly beautiful beings united as closely by the bonds of the altar as he believed they were in heart, and he longed for the hour when he might endow them with those proofs of his fraternal love which should class them with the first of Scottish princes.
"But how," thought he, "can I ever sufficiently reward thee, Wallace, for what thou hast done for me and mine? Thy services are beyond all price; thy soul is above even empires. Then how can I show thee all that is in my heart for thee?"
While he thus apostrophized his friend, Wallace and Helen advanced toward him. Bruce held out his hand to her with a cordial smile.
"Lady Helen, we are still to be the same! Robes of no kind must ever separate the affections born in our pilgrimage!"