barked without meeting any hinderance whatever, and reached Calais, after so favourable a voyage that the captain remarked, being in perfect ignorance whom he had on board, that "if his passengers were flying for their lives, the boat could not have gone quicker." The remaining two prisoners, Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater, suffered the terrible fate which their companion had escaped so narrowly, the following morning. The second, gallant, courteous, and young, was "perhaps the most interesting victim of this attempted revolution."

Though she had thus happily compassed her husband's deliverance, the task of our heroine was not yet finished; and she hastened to carry out the remainder of her schemes of domestic happiness, which involved both the restoration of her son to the arms of his parents, and the recovery of the family papers. These last, as we have seen, were consigned to the care of the gardener, who had buried them in a spot known only to his mistress. Lady Nithsdale lost no time in travelling homewards; and though her only escort consisted of her own female attendants, and a reward was set upon her detention, she managed to reach the family estate. Upon arriving, this energetic woman found news had travelled with less despatch; and she was enabled, by appearing to have Government sanction for so doing, to obtain admission to the house, for the purpose of arranging matters there. A few hours sufficed to dispose of the important papers,

and prepare her child for his journey. The next morning she set out on her return to England, just as suspicions were becoming general as to the actual possession of any permission but that of her own free will for her presence in Scotland.

It may be readily imagined that the king waxed wroth at the continued defiance at which his fair subject set him. George I. had been informed of her journey to Scotland, and as he had expressly declared that she must be answerable with her life, if found in his dominions, the greatest caution was necessary, to avoid discovery during the remainder of her stay. Yet, despite all, this brave woman, who, according to the royal declaration, "had given him more anxiety and trouble than any other in Europe," remained "perdue" for nearly a fortnight in London, at the end of which time, pursuit having cooled, she embarked with her son for France, whither she arrived in safety. Here she had the happiness of rejoining the man, for whose life she had so energetically and successfully battled ; nor is it on record that they were ever again divided. Italy offered a secure retreat to the proscribed pair, and they continued to reside there until the death of Lady Nithsdale, which preceded that of her husband by a few years only. From the lively narrative she has left us of this most exciting event of her life, we can imagine that her reminiscences of that "hair-breadth 'scape," her felicitations on the success of her stratagems, and gratitude to the Providence

which had sustained her, must have been mingled with many a bit of feminine merriment at the king's signal defeat. Her adroitness and ingenuity took by force, what he refused to her earnest prayers. Nor can we believe that, in after-life, she regretted the occasion which had furnished her with a means of proving the intensity of her love, and the pertinacity of her deter mination. The oft-quoted line,

"If she will, she will, you may depend on't,"

would, indeed, have made an excellent motto for the Countess of Nith sill.

She breathed her last in Rome, a city whose brightest annals of antiquity, her heroic and devoted nature would not have dishonoured,

Helen Walker.

"Accustom your children to a strict attention to Truth, even in the most minute particulars. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them: you do not know where deviations from Truth will end."-JOHNSON.