"
"I will stay with you," cried Edwin, "and I dare say Sir William
Wallace will have no objection to be speedily joined by my mother; for,
as I came along, I met my aunt Mar hastening through the gallery; and,
between ourselves, my sweet coz, I do not think my noble friend quite
likes a private conference with your fair stepmother."
Lady Ruthven had withdrawn before he made this observation.
"Why, Edwin?-surely she would not do anything ungracious to one to whom
she owes so great a weight of obligations?" When Helen asked this, she
remembered the spleen Lady Mar once cherished against Wallace; and she
feared it might now be revived.
"Ungracious! O, no! the reverse of that; but her gratitude is full of
absurdity. I will not repeat the fooleries with which she sought to
detain him at Bute. And that some new fancy respecting him is now
about to menace his patience. I am convinced; for, on my way hither, I
met her hurrying along, and as she passed me she exclaimed, 'Is Lord
Buchan arrived?' I answered. 'Yes.' 'Ah, then he proclaimed him
king?' cried she; and into the great gallery she darted."
"You do not mean to say," demanded Helen, turning her eyes with an
expression which seemed confident of his answer, "that Sir William
Wallace has accepted the crown of Scotland?"
"Certainly not," replied Edwin; "but as certainly it has been offered
to him, and he has refused it.
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