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lady, of uncommon strength of mind and unconquerable spirit, came to superintend the physicians and sick-nurses employed for her daughter-in-law, whom she found more dutiful than the Baron, her own offspring. She also had embraced the doctrines of the Reformation; but, protected by her grandnephew, the Earl of Murray, and possessing more wealth than any dowager in the kingdom, the displeasure or good graces of her son gave her no concern, while duty and policy enjoined him to conciliate her favour. When his lady was no more, the Baron, alike vehement in resenting her irreclaimable apostacy, and anxious to atone for the unkindness that sent her prematurely to the tomb, consumed his days and nights in penances or in prayers for her soul, and in beseeching the Blessed Virgin to avert from Scotland that philosophic temerity, which menaced a total extinction of the pious ardour, that through ages had exalted and enriched the Holy Mother Church. He grew weary of the world, and withdrew to the sequestered castle, where Dulsibella blossomed and bloomed into matchless beauty and attainments, under the fostering tenderness and assiduity of her grandmother. The priest who recommended this seclusion, flattered himself that a few years would terminate the mortal pilgrimage of the old Baroness, and that Dulsibella should fall to the