afforded to his father, he had not been untaught, and his rapid,
eager, intelligent mind had caught at all opportunities afforded
by those palace monasteries of Scotland in which he had stayed
for various periods of his vexed and stormy minority. Good
Bishop Kennedy, with whom he had now spent many months, had
studied at Paris and had passed four years at Rome, so as to be
well able both to enlarge and stimulate his notions. In Eleanor
he had found a companion delighted to share his studies, and
full likewise of original fancy and of that vein of poetry
almost peculiar to Scottish women; and Jean was equally charming
for all the sports in which she could take part, while the
little ones, whom, to his credit be it spoken, he always treated
as brothers, were pleasant playthings.

His presence, with all that it involved, had made a most happy
change in the maidens' lives; and yet there was still great
dreariness, much restraint in the presence of constant
precaution against violence, much rudeness and barbarism in the
surroundings, absolute poverty in the plenishing, a lack of all
beauty save in the wild and rugged face of northern nature, and
it was hardly to be wondered at that young people, inheritors of
the cultivated instincts of James I. and of the Plantagenets,
should yearn for something beyond, especially for that sunny
southern land which report and youthful imagination made them
believe an ideal world of peace, of poetry, and of chivalry,
and the loving elder sister who seemed to them a part of that
golden age when their noble and tender-hearted father was among
them.

The boy's foot was on the turret-stairs, and he was out on the