Her
death--would it not be the happiest news that Scotland ever heard? Is
she not of the bloody Guisian stock, whose sword was so often red with
the blood of God's saints? Is she not the daughter of the wretched
tyrant James, whom Heaven cast down from his kingdom, and his pride,
even as the king of Babylon was smitten?"
"Peace, villain !" said the Lady--a thousand varied recollections
thronging on her mind at the mention of her royal lover's name;
"Peace, and disturb not the ashes of the dead--of the royal, of the
unhappy dead. Read thy Bible; and may God grant thee to avail thyself
better of its contents than thou hast yet done!" She departed hastily,
and as she reached the next apartment, the tears rose in her eyes so
hastily, that she was compelled to stop and use her kerchief to dry
them. "I expected not this," she said, "no more than to have drawn
water from the dry flint, or sap from a withered tree. I saw with a
dry eye the apostacy and shame of George Douglas, the hope of my son's
house--the child of my love; and yet I now weep for him who has so
long lain in his grave--for him to whom I owe it that his daughter can
make a scoffing and a jest of my name! But she is _his_
daughter--my heart, hardened against her for so many causes, relents
when a glance of her eye places her father unexpectedly before me--and
as often her likeness to that true daughter of the house of Guise, her
detested mother, has again confirmed my resolution.
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