OWING to the multiplicity of affairs which engaged Wallace’s attention after the capture of Stirling, the ladies of Mar had not seen him since his first visit to the citadel. The Countess passed this time in writing her despatches to the numerous lords of her house, both in Scotland and in England; and by her subtle arguments she completely persuaded her husband, of the cogency of putting the names of Lord Athol, and Lord Badenoch, into the list of noble prisoners he should request.

"That may be !the case with the Earl of Badenoch," replied Wallace, "but something less friendly to Scotland, must be in the breast of the man who could betray Lord Douglas into the hands of his enemies."

For these, the Earls De Warenne, De Valence, and Montgomery, the Barons Hilton and Blenkinsopp, and others of note, were to be exchanged. Those of lesser consequence, man for man, were to be returned for Scots of the same degree.

Her ambitious vision was disturbed by the crowd rushing forward: the gates were thronged with people of every age and sex; and Wallace himself appeared, on his white charger, with his helmet off, bowing and smiling upon the populace. There was a mild effulgence in his eye; a divine benevolence in his countenance, as his parted lips showed the brightness of his smile; which seemed to speak of happiness within, of joy to all around. She hastily snatched a chaplet of flowers from her head, and threw it from the window. Wallace looked up; his bow, and his smile, were then directed to her but they were altered. The moment he met the gratulation of her eager eyes, he remembered what would have been the soft welcome of his Marion’s, under the like circumstance! But that tender eye was closed; that ear was shut; to whom he would have wished these plaudits to have given rapture,—and they were now as nothing to him. The Countess saw not what was passing in his mind, but kissing her hand to him, disappeared from the window when he entered the palace.

Another eye besides Lady Mar’s, had witnessed the triumphant entry of Wallace. Triumphant in the true sense of the word; for he came a victor over the hearts of men; he came, not attended by his captives won in the war, but by the people he had blessed; by throngs calling him preserver, father, friend, and prince! By every title which can inspire the soul of man with the happy consciousness of fulfilling his embassy here below.

Helen was this witness. She had passed the long interval, since she had seen Wallace, in the state of one in a dream. The glance had been so transient, that every succeeding hour seemed to lessen the evidence of her senses, that she had really beheld him. It appeared impossible to her, that the man whom her thoughts had hitherto dwelt on as the widowed husband of Marion, as the hero whom sorrow had wholly dedicated to patriotism and to heaven, would ever awaken in her breast, feelings, which would seem to break like a sacrilegious host, upon the holy consecration of his. Once, she had contemplated his idea with the pensive impressions of one leaning over the grave of a hero and she could then turn, as if emerging from the glooms of sepulchral monuments to upper day, to the image of her unknown knight! she could then blamelessly recollect the matchless graces of his figure; the noble soul that breathed from his every word and action; the sweet, though thoughtful, serenity that sat on his brow! "There," whispered she to herself, "are the lofty meditations of a royal mind, devising the freedom of his people. When that is effected, how will the perfect sunshine break out from that face! Alit how blest must Scotland be under his reign, when all will be light, virtue, and joy !" Bliss hovered like an angel, over the image of this imaginary; Bruce; while sorrow, in mourning weeds, seemed ever dropping tears, when any circumstance recalled that of the real Wallace.

Such was the state of Helen’s thoughts, when in the moment of her beholding the chief of Ellerslie in the citadel, she recognised, in his expected melanchbly form, the resplendent countenance of him whom she supposed the Prince of Scotland.—That two images so opposite, should at once unite; that in one bosom, should be mingled all the virtues, she had believed peculiar to each; struck her with overwhelming amazement. But when she recovered from her short swoon, and found Wallace at her feet; when she felt that all the devotion her heart had hitherto paid to the simple idea of virtue alone, would now be attracted to that glorious mortal, in whom all human excellence appeared summed up ; she trembled under an emotion that seemed to rob her of herself; and place a new principle of being within her.

All was so extraordinary, so unlooked for, so bewildering, that from the moment in which she had retired in such a paroxysm of highly-wrought feelings from her first interview in the gallery with him, she became altogether like a person in a trance; and hardly answering her aunt, when she then led her up the stairs, only complained she was ill, and threw herself upon a couch.

At the very time that her heart told her, in a language she could not misunderstand, that she irrevocably loved this too glorious, too amiable Wallace; it as powerfully denounced to he; that she had devoted herself to one, who must ever be to her as a being of air. No word of sympathy, would ever: whisper felicity to her heart; no— the flame that was within her (which she found would be immortal, as the vestal fires which resembled its purity,) must burn there unknown; hidden, but not smothered.