"Isabella," said Hippolita calmly, "is retired, I suppose, to her

chamber: she is not accustomed to watch at this late hour. Gracious
my Lord," continued she, "let me know what has disturbed you. Has

Isabella offended you?"
"Trouble me not with questions," said Manfred, "but tell me where she

is."
"Matilda shall call her," said the Princess. "Sit down, my Lord, and

resume your wonted fortitude."
"What, art thou jealous of Isabella?" replied he, "that you wish to be

present at our interview!"
"Good heavens! my Lord," said Hippolita, "what is it your Highness

means?"
"Thou wilt know ere many minutes are passed," said the cruel Prince.

"Send your chaplain to me, and wait my pleasure here."
At these words he flung out of the room in search of Isabella, leaving

the amazed ladies thunderstruck with his words and frantic deportment,
and lost in vain conjectures on what he was meditating.

Manfred was now returning from the vault, attended by the peasant and
a few of his servants whom he had obliged to accompany him. He

ascended the staircase without stopping till he arrived at the
gallery, at the door of which he met Hippolita and her chaplain. When

Diego had been dismissed by Manfred, he had gone directly to the
Princess's apartment with the alarm of what he had seen. That

excellent Lady, who no more than Manfred doubted of the reality of the
vision, yet affected to treat it as a delirium of the servant.

Willing, however, to save her Lord from any additional shock, and
prepared by a series of griefs not to tremble at any accession to it,

she determined to make herself the first sacrifice, if fate had marked
the present hour for their destruction. Dismissing the reluctant

Matilda to her rest, who in vain sued for leave to accompany her
mother, and attended only by her chaplain, Hippolita had visited the

gallery and great chamber; and now with more serenity of soul than she
had felt for many hours, she met her Lord, and assured him that the

vision of the gigantic leg and foot was all a fable; and no doubt an
impression made by fear, and the dark and dismal hour of the night, on

the minds of his servants. She and the chaplain had examined the
chamber, and found everything in the usual order.

Manfred, though persuaded, like his wife, that the vision had been no
work of fancy, recovered a little from the tempest of mind into which

so many strange events had thrown him. Ashamed, too, of his inhuman
treatment of a Princess who returned every injury with new marks of

tenderness and duty, he felt returning love forcing itself into his
eyes; but not less ashamed of feeling remorse towards one against whom

he was inwardly meditating a yet more bitter outrage, he curbed the
yearnings of his heart, and did not dare to lean even towards pity.

The next transition of his soul was to exquisite villainy.
Presuming on the unshaken submission of Hippolita, he flattered

himself that she would not only acquiesce with patience to a divorce,
but would obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade

Isabella to give him her hand - but ere he could indulge his horrid
hope, he reflected that Isabella was not to be found. Coming to

himself, he gave orders that every avenue to the castle should be
strictly guarded, and charged his domestics on pain of their lives to

suffer nobody to pass out. The young peasant, to whom he spoke
favourably, he ordered to remain in a small chamber on the stairs, in

which there was a pallet-bed, and the key of which he took away
himself, telling the youth he would talk with him in the morning.

Then dismissing his attendants, and bestowing a sullen kind of half-
nod on Hippolita, he retired to his own chamber.

CHAPTER II.
MATILDA, who by Hippolita's order had retired to her apartment, was

ill-disposed to take any rest. The shocking fate of her brother had
deeply affected her. She was surprised at not seeing Isabella; but

the strange words which had fallen from her father, and his obscure
menace to the Princess his wife, accompanied by the most furious

behaviour, had filled her gentle mind with terror and alarm. She
waited anxiously for the return of Bianca, a young damsel that

attended her, whom she had sent to learn what was become of Isabella.
Bianca soon appeared, and informed her mistress of what she had

gathered from the servants, that Isabella was nowhere to be found.
She related the adventure of the young peasant who had been discovered

in the vault, though with many simple additions from the incoherent
accounts of the domestics; and she dwelt principally on the gigantic

leg and foot which had been seen in the gallery-chamber. This last
circumstance had terrified Bianca so much, that she was rejoiced when

Matilda told her that she would not go to rest, but would watch till
the Princess should rise.

The young Princess wearied herself in conjectures on the flight of
Isabella, and on the threats of Manfred to her mother. "But what

business could he have so urgent with the chaplain?" said Matilda,
"Does he intend to have my brother's body interred privately in the

chapel?"
"Oh, Madam!" said Bianca, "now I guess. As you are become his

heiress, he is impatient to have you married: he has always been
raving for more sons; I warrant he is now impatient for grandsons. As

sure as I live, Madam, I shall see you a bride at last. - Good madam,
you won't cast off your faithful Bianca: you won't put Donna Rosara

over me now you are a great Princess."
"My poor Bianca," said Matilda, "how fast your thoughts amble! I a

great princess" target="_blank" title="n.公主；王妃；亲王夫人">princess! What hast thou seen in Manfred's behaviour since my
brother's death that bespeaks any increase of tenderness to me? No,

Bianca; his heart was ever a stranger to me - but he is my father, and
I must not complain. Nay, if Heaven shuts my father's heart against

me, it overpays my little merit in the tenderness of my mother - O
that dear mother! yes, Bianca, 'tis there I feel the ruggedtemper of

Manfred. I can support his harshness to me with patience; but it
wounds my soul when I am witness to his causeless severity towards

her."
"Oh! Madam," said Bianca, "all men use their wives so, when they are

weary of them."
"And yet you congratulated me but now," said Matilda, "when you

fancied my father intended to dispose of me!"
"I would have you a great Lady," replied Bianca, "come what will. I

do not wish to see you moped in a convent, as you would be if you had
your will, and if my Lady, your mother, who knows that a bad husband

is better than no husband at all, did not hinder you. - Bless me! what
noise is that! St. Nicholas forgive me! I was but in jest."

"It is the wind," said Matilda, "whistling through the battlements in
the tower above: you have heard it a thousand times."

"Nay," said Bianca, "there was no harm neither in what I said: it is
no sin to talk of matrimony - and so, Madam, as I was saying, if my

Lord Manfred should offer you a handsome young Prince for a
bridegroom, you would drop him a curtsey, and tell him you would

rather take the veil?"
"Thank Heaven! I am in no such danger," said Matilda: "you know how

many proposals for me he has rejected - "
"And you thank him, like a dutiful daughter, do you, Madam? But come,

Madam; suppose, to-morrow morning, he was to send for you to the great
council chamber, and there you should find at his elbow a lovely young

Prince, with large black eyes, a smooth white forehead, and manly
curling locks like jet; in short, Madam, a young hero resembling the

picture of the good Alfonso in the gallery, which you sit and gaze at
for hours together - "

"Do not speak lightly of that picture," interrupted Matilda sighing;
"I know the adoration with which I look at that picture is uncommon -

but I am not in love with a coloured panel. The character of that
virtuous Prince, the veneration with which my mother has inspired me

for his memory, the orisons which, I know not why, she has enjoined me
to pour forth at his tomb, all have concurred to persuade me that

somehow or other my destiny is linked with something relating to him."
"Lord, Madam! how should that be?" said Bianca; "I have always heard