The monastery; The abbot.

276 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
the noble cast of his features, partook not of that poverty of appearance.
The proudest noble in Scotland might have been yet prouder could he have
called that child his heir. While, with breathless anxiety, the Lady of
Avenel gazed on his well-formed and expressive features, a slight shade of
colour returned gradually to the cheek; suspended animation became
restored by degrees, the child sighed deeply, opened his eyes, which to the
human countenance produces the effect of light upon the natural landscape,
stretched his arms towards the Lady, and muttered the word "Mother,"
that epithet, of all others, which is dearest to the female ear.
"God, madam," said the preacher, " has restored the child to your wishes;
it must be yours so to bring him up, that he may not one day wish that he
hlad perished in his innocence."
"It shall be my charge," said the Lady; and again throwing her arms
around the boy, she overwhelmed him with kisses and caresses, so much was
she agitated by the terror arising from the danger in which he had been
just placed, and by joy at his unexpected deliverance.
" But you are not my mother," said the boy, recovering his recollection,
and endeavouring, though faintly, to escape from the caresses of the Lady
of Avenel; " you are not my mother,-alas! I have no mother-only I have
dreamt that I had one."
"I will read the dream for you, my love," answered the Lady of Avenel;
"and I will be myself your mother. Surely God has heard my wishes,
and, in his own marvellous manner, hath sent me an object on which my
affections may expand themselves." She looked towards Warden as she
spoke. The preacher hesitated what he should reply to a burst of passionate
feeling, which, perhaps, seemed to him more enthusiastic than the occasion
demanded. In the meanwhile, the large stag-hound, Wolf, which, dripping
wet as he was, had followed his mistress into the apartment, and had sat by
the bedside, a patient and quiet spectator of all the means used for resuscitation of the being whom he had preserved, now became impatient of
remaining any longer unnoticed, and began to whine and fawn upon the
Lady with his great rough paws.
"Yes," she said,'" good Wolf, and you shall be remembered also for your
day's work; and I will think the more of you for having preserved the life
of a creature so beautiful."
But Wolf was not quite satisfied with the share of attention which he
thus attracted; he persisted in whining and pawing upon his mistress, his
caresses rendered still more troublesome by his long shaggy hair being so
much and thoroughly wetted, till she desired one of the domestics, with
whom he was familiar, to call the animal out of the apartment. Wolf
resisted every invitation to this purpose, until his mistress positively commanded him to be gone, in an angry tone; when, turning towards the bed
on which the body still lay, half awake to sensation, half drowned in the
meanders of fluctuating delirium, he uttered a deep and savage growl,
curled up his nose and lips, showing his full range of white and sharpened
teeth, which might have matched those of an actual wolf, and then, turning
round, sullenly followed the domestic out of the apartment.
"It is singular," said the Lady, addressing Warden; " the animal is not
only so good-natured to all, but so particularly fond of children. What can
ail him at the little fellow whose life he has saved?"
" Dogs," replied the preacher, " are but too like the human race in their
foibles, though their instinct be less erring than the reason of poor mortal
man when relying upon his own unassisted powers. Jealousy, my good
lady, is a passion not unknown to them, and they often evince it, not only
with respect to the preferences which they see given by their masters to
individuals of their own species, but even when their rivals are children.
You have caressed that child much and eagerly, and the d-g considers
himself as a discarded favourite,"