The friends, for so we may now term them, were fain, therefore, to escape from the society of these persons, all of them born gentlewomen, who thought themselves but ill assorted with a burgher's daughter and a strolling glee maiden, and saw them with pleasure go out to walk in the neighbourhood of the convent.

A little garden, with its bushes and fruit trees, advanced on one side of the convent, so as to skirt the precipice, from which it was only separated by a parapet built on the ledge of the rock, so low that the eye might easily measure the depth of the crag, and gaze on the conflicting waters which foamed, struggled, and chafed over the reef below.
The Fair Maiden of Perth and her companion walked slowly on a path that ran within this parapet, looked at the romantic prospect, and judged what it must be when the advancing summer should clothe the grove with leaves.

They observed for some time a deep silence.

At length the gay and bold spirit of the glee maiden rose above the circumstances in which she had been and was now placed.
"Do the horrors of Falkland, fair May, still weigh down your spirits?
Strive to forget them as I do: we cannot tread life's path lightly, if we shake not from our mantles the raindrops as they fall." "These horrors are not to be forgotten," answered Catharine.

"Yet my mind is at present anxious respecting my father's safety; and I cannot but think how many brave men may be at this instant leaving the world, even within six miles of us, or little farther." "You mean the combat betwixt sixty champions, of which the Douglas's equerry told us yesterday?
It were a sight for a minstrel to witness.
But out upon these womanish eyes of mine--they could never see swords cross each other without being dazzled.