CHAPTER VII.
Bothwell Castle.
Meanwhile the Lady Helen had retired to her own apartments.

Lord Mar's banner being brought to her from the armory, she sat down to weave into its silken texture the amber locks of the Scottish chief.

Admiring their softness and beauty, while her needle flew, she pictured to herself the fine countenance they had once adorned.
The duller extremities of the hair, which a sadder liquid than that which now dropped from her eyes and rendered stiff and difficult to entwine with the warp of the silk, seemed to adhere to her fingers.
Helen almost shrunk from the touch.

"Unhappy lady!" she sighed to herself; "what a pang must have rent her heart, when the stroke of so cruel a death tore her from such a husband! and how must he have loved her, when for her sake he thus forswears all future joys but those which camps and victories may yield! Ah! what would I give to be my cousin Murray, to bear this pennon at his side! What would I give to reconcile so admirable a being to happiness again--to weep his griefs, or smile him into comfort! To be that man's friend, would be a higher honor than to be Edward's queen." Her heart was thus discoursing with itself when a page opened the door for her cousin, who begged admittance.

She had just fastened the flowing charge into its azure field, and while embroidering the motto, gladly assented.
"You know not, my good old man," said the gallant Murray to Halbert, as he conducted him across the galleries, "what a noble mind is contained in that lovely young creature.