indifferent whether Helen's seclusion were under the Elidon tree or the
Holyrood, she approved Murray's decision. Relieved from apprehension,
her face became again dressed in smiles, and, with a bounding step, she
rose to welcome the re-entrance of Wallace with the Earl of Lennox.

Absorbed in one thought, every charm she possessed was directed to the
same point. She played finely on the lute and sung with all the grace
of her country. What gentle heart was not to be affected by music?
She determined it should be once of the spells by which she meant to
attract Wallace. She took up one of the lutes (which with other
musical instruments decorated the apartments of the luxurious De
Valence), and touching it with exquisite delicacy, breathed the most
pathetic air her memory could dictate.

"If on the heath she moved, her breast was whiter than the down of Cana;
If on the sea-beat shore, than the foam of the rolling ocean.
Her eyes were two stars of light. Her face was Heaven's bow in-showers;
Her dark hair flowed around it, like the streaming clouds,
Thou wert the dweller of souls, white-handed Strinadona!"

Wallace rose from his chair, which had been placed near her. She had
deigned that these tender words of the bard of Morven should suggest to
her hearer the observation of her own resembling beauties. But he saw
in them only the lovely dweller of his own soul; and walking toward a
window, stood there with his eyes fixed on the descending sun. "So
hath set all my joys. So is life to me, a world without a sun-cold,
cold, and charmless!"

The countess vainly believed that some sensibility advantageous to her
new passion had caused the agitation with which she saw him depart from