since her marriage, she was withdrawn from her husband's company. Lord Keswycke had hastened, by a pre-appointment with the Lord Churchill and the Duke of Grafton, to join the protestant prince at Axminster ;—and even at the moment of bidding him farewell, Milicent had the noble fortitude to say "God speed him!" without embittering their parting embrace by a single tear. She looked upon him as a nuncio of Heaven, going forth to fulfil his master's work; nor was it till after his departure, after the old gates of the Moat had actually closed upon the last straggler of his train, that she fell down on the threshold in a deep swoon, struggling for five hours between death and life, while the doting old knight tore his grey hair by her bedside, and Ursula sat chafing her cold hands without hope of her recovery. Her disorder arose, however, from weakness of body, not weakness of mind. Her soul was worthy of her husband and his cause; and, in the course of a day or two, she was enabled to rise and go into her oratory, and pray with all her spirit for a blessing on the absent one." He saved my father ;—he is about to save my country :-strengthen him, O Lord God, with thy mighty power, and prosper his undertaking!" said Milicent; and, in the sight of Heaven at least, she had no need to check the bitterness of her agony.

Her prayers were heard !—The hour of danger passed away; but although Milicent knew him to be standing at the king's right hand at Westminster, she had prudence to refrain from joining her husband in the capital, or from interceding for a short visit to the Moat, lest she should intercept, however slightly, the fulfilment of his public duties. Mighty indeed had been the strife within her soul, and mighty the anguish of her heart, during the political conflict of that bloodless revolution. But still more mighty was her reward when, summoned by her lord to their new residence at court, she heard his name shouted by the grateful populace as he approached; and, amid the tears that sprung into her eyes, and which she was no longer compelled to repress, hailed for

the first time the countenance she loved brightened by the sunshine of perfect contentment !—The destinies of his country were secured, and Milicent was again in his arms!

It was amid the tumult of this unhoped-for triumph, that Lady Keswycke and her lord were summoned to receive the old man her father's dying benediction; and it was an affecting thing to hear the aged knight, reversing the law of nature, render thanks to his child that she had solaced him, and supported him, and been a stay to his feeble footsteps. He bequeathed his daughter Ursula to the guardianship of his highminded son-in-law as to that of a second Providence; and then, like Simeon, was ready to "depart in peace, now that his eyes had seen the salvation of the Lord :" leaving it to his daughters, to carry back the remains of their old father to the abode of his ancestors,-where he had hoped to return and find a tranquil home, and where it was their pious. duty to lay his grey head in the grave.

Some years had now elapsed since they quitted Cressingham. The hall had grown damp and dark and gloomy, even to the uttermost desolation; while the gardens, like every spot recommitted to the hand of nature, were only the more beautiful in proportion to their abandonment. The trimmed shrubs had shot forth into a natural shape; the flowers, unchecked and unpruned, had sprung up as in a wilderness of blossom; song-birds had built unheeded on every side; and even the wild bees now deposited their treasures in the clefts of its solitary trees. As the sisters bent their steps on the evening of their arrival across the weedy gravel, or ascended the mossy stone steps of the terrace-startled in their turn by the wood-pigeons they scared from their nests, Ursula vainly attempted to beguile her sister from the path leading to the phyllyrea bower. "Nay, let us not bend our steps thitherward," faltered she at length, fancying that the spot would present a painful recollection in the mind of Lady Keswicke.

"And wherefore not ?" answered Milicent, in her own sweet stedfast voice, turning upon her a countenance that

their father's recent death had stripped of its natural bloom. "It is my place of triumph, Ursula !—the spot where I was tempted the spot where I was sustained against temptation. But for that green arbour and its scene of parting, I had followed my youth's vain fancy, and never been blest as the wedded wife of the noblest of mankind; had never enjoyed the triumph of being dearest of all to one whose love extends to the meanest of his fellow-creatures :-the glory of holding a part in that mind to which the nations of the earth turn for guidance and instruction :-the holy joy of knowing myself a first object in those prayers betwixt which and Heaven no wild or worldly object interposeth! My sister-my dear sister, look around-look at these shapeless walls of verdure, these decaying benches, this weed-entangled ground under our feet ;—and then thank Heaven for me that they were made to bear witness to my eternal separation from one who would have had me desert my father in his falling fortunes!"

The influence of a woman thus gifted was necessarily great at the sober court of the new queen; where, sorely against her will and solely in obedience to her husband, Lady Keswycke had undertaken the post of Lady of the Bedchamber. Resigning the tranquil seclusion of Keswycke Moat for the stir and pageantry of Hampton Court—and elbowed in the antechamber of the palace of St. James's, instead of presiding over the restoration of the Cressingham estates, -Milicent, over whom, from her youth upward, the word duty possessed a paramount authority, renounced without repining those simple habits which her country breeding rendered second nature. The buoyancy of her youthful gaiety had long been subdued into the matron dignity of a wife; but an innocent joyousness of spirit still sparkled in her eyes whenever Keswycke's weight in the council, or arguments in the House, or favour with all classes of the realm, were commended in her hearing. It was the custom of Mary to sit among the ladies of her court, engaged in needlework, or

other exercises which could be made available to benevolent purposes; and among these the Lady Keswycke was the fairest, and most graceful, and most favoured. Her prudence, her dignified humility, as well as her enthusiasm in the cause sanctioned by a father and a husband, rendered her an invaluable companion to her majesty; and when, sixty months afterwards, the king departed on his Irish expedition, it was in the bosom of her friend (her friend—not favourite) that the daughter of James-the wife of William-deposited her two-fold sorrow. And well indeed could Milicent appreciate their influence; and earnestly did she rejoice that the necessity of Keswycke's presence in the council prevented him from following the fortunes of his royal master. He had been appointed by the king, with seven other statesmen, to exercise a direct influence over the measures of the Queen; and his position, as the husband of her favourite friend, having invested him in the royal mind with a degree of interest beyond that of the Lords Carmarthen and Nottingham, his time was soon wholly engrossed by hurried journeys between Windsor and Whitehall.

But the crisis of Milicent's destiny was now at hand. One morning, some days after the arrival of intelligence of the battle of the Boyne, Ursula de Cressingham burst, with frantic gestures and quivering lips, into the cabinet of his lady,

her sister.

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Weep with me," cried she; " weep with me: our father's house is dishonoured! Frank-our cousin Frank-our playmate the hand-in-hand companion of our childhood-is a prisoner; ay, and likely to perish by an ignominious death!"

"The clemency of the king is well known," said Milicent, coldly: "nor is it the custom of modern warfare to injure an honourable captive."

"Alas, alas!" cried Ursula, "can I, dare I, tell you all and move you in his behalf?-Shall I avow the weakness of my heart ?—Yes! I love him, Milly—love him with all the fer

vour of womanly attachment!-While the eyes of our cousin Francis were riveted on you, mine saw nothing on this earth besides himself. Judge, therefore, Milicent, my dearest sister, judge of my feelings on learning that a great victory has blessed our protestant hosts; and that the papers of the Lord Tirconnell having fallen into the hands of the victors, a horrible plot has been discovered for the assassination of the king's majesty. Sister, it is rumoured that a De Cressingham was the enemy to whom was delegated the perpetration of the crime."

"Great Heaven !" exclaimed Milicent, "I thank thee that my father did not live to see this day."

"He is innocent!-our cousin is innocent!" cried Ursula. Surely it is guilt enough to be accessible to the charge of so heinous an enormity," said Lady Keswycke, shuddering with horror.

"And has your heart no memory ?" ejaculated Ursula : "do you recollect nothing of your childish endearments,— your youthful friendships ?-The same blood flows in the breast of Francis that animated our father's; would you see it outpoured on a scaffold ?—Would you hear the name of our forefathers profaned by the common voice as that of a traitor and a malefactor ?-Your influence is great with your lord. Plead with him, plead with him, and save our kinsman from this disgraceful end."

"Leave me," said the lady, bestowing a warm sisterly embrace upon the trembling Ursula; "I have need to ponder upon these things."

Milicent was seated at her tiring mirror when her sister burst into her chamber ;—and there she still sat,-perplexed by that stir of pulse which, however great the influence of female prudence or christian principle, is apt to wake anew on mention of the lover of our youth. The recollection of those early days was as a far-off vision; connected with her mother's endearments, her father's pride in her well-doing ; with holy memories of the dead, with holy reliance on the