 Court, the King would not suffer her to return; and their brother, fearful she should yield to his licentious wishes; had hastened thither to claim her. The young people who made this artless recital, were formed to grace it—when the fair Phoebe spoke of the charms of her sister, her own were heighthened by a softer, fuller bloom; and when she mentioned, their dangerous effect, the proud blush of a generous shame gave manliness to the boyish features of her brother Hugh.—Accustomed as my friend and self had long been to every worldly charm and

advantage, we saw in this remote spot, and these untutored children of nature, a simple and noble grace art only refines away.
When it came to my turn to narrate, I used every artifice to guard against the possibility of danger.—Adopting the name Lady Southampton had lately quitted, I called myself Vernon; a youth employed till lately as a page in the train of the Earl of Essex, and now his secretary—the lady with me, I said, allied to the Earl of Southampton, was lately wedded to me; and both were following these noblemen when overtaken by the tempest which had thrown us upon their shore, and rendered us debtors to their humanity. Finding we came from the seat of war, and were conversant with the Court of England, they both asked a thousand various questions suitable to their sex, age, and simplicity, respecting the one and the other; and our descriptions, to their unformed conceptions, comprized every charm of magnificence, glory, and gaiety.

The happy device of a pretended marriage enabling me to share the chamber of Lady Southampton, we chose the hour of retirement to consider our present situation, and the mode most likely to restore us once more to the country and connections from which the storm had separated us.—My friend justly remarked, that the sailors wrecked with us, and its natives, were all the people likely to visit this remote and solitary isle, and that if we failed to take advantage of the departure of the first, we should throw ourselves wholly upon the generosity of the Laird of Dornock, of whose character we could not venture to decide from those of the amiable young people, who had so warmly embraced our cause.—After the application of Essex to my brother in my favour had been rejected, I had every thing to fear if any circumstance should betray me into his power, and the strictest secresy on our names and condition alone could give us a hope of liberty;—how under such restrictions we could clearly

explain our present situation to the two noblemen whom alone
