The loud huzzas, accompanied
by the acclamations of "Our protector and prince!" seemed already to
bind her brows with her anticipated diadem, and for a moment, vanity
lost the image of love in the purple with which she enveloped it.
Her ambitious vision was disturbed by the crowd rushing forward; the
gates were thronged with people of every age and sex, and Wallace
himself appeared on his white charger, with his helmet off, bowing and
smiling upon the populace. There was a mild effulgence in his eye; a
divine benevolence in his countenance, as his parted lips showed the
brightness of his smile, which seemed to speak of happiness within, of
joy to all around. She hastily snatched a chaplet of flowers form her
head, and threw it from the window. Wallace looked up; his brow and
his smile were then directed to her! but they were altered. The moment
he met the congratulation of her eager eyes, he remembered what would
have been the soft welcome of his Marion's under the like circumstance!
But that tender eye was closed-that ear was shut, to whom he would
have wished these plaudits to have given rapture-and they were now as
nothing to him.
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