was a mother to our house. But this life is but a pilgrimage; we must not murmur—we shall all follow her: may our end be like hers!”

“Good brother, thou dreamest,” said Jerome; “I tell thee I come from the castle, and left the princess well:—where is the Lady Isabella?”

“Poor gentlewoman,” replied the friar, “I told her the sad news, and offered her spiritual comfort; I reminded her of the transitory condition of mortality, and advised her to take the veil: I quoted the example of the holy Princess Sanchia of Arragon.”

“Thy zeal was laudable,” said Jerome, impatiently; “but at present it was unnecessary. Hippolita is well—at least I trust in the Lord she is; I heard nothing to the contrary—yet methinks, the prince’s earnestness—well, brother, but where is the Lady Isabella?”

“I know not,” said the friar: “she wept much, and said she would retire to her chamber.”

Jerome left his comrade abruptly, and hastened to the princess, but she was not in her chamber. He inquired of the domestics of the convent, but could learn no news of her. He searched in vain throughout the monastery and the church, and dispatched messengers round the neighbourhood, to get intelligence if she had been seen, but to no purpose. Nothing could equal the good man’s perplexity. He judged that Isabella, suspecting Manfred of having precipitated his wife’s death, had taken the alarm, and withdrawn herself to some more secret place of concealment. This new flight would probably carry the prince’s fury to the height. The report of Hippolita’s death, though it seemed almost incredible, increased his consternation; and though Isabella’s escape bespoke her aversion of Manfred for a husband, Jerome could feel no comfort from it while it endangered the life of his son. He determined to return to the castle, and made several of his brethren accompany him, to attest his innocence to Manfred, and, if necessary, join their intercessions with his for Theodore.

The prince, in the meantime, had passed into the court, and ordered the gates of the castle to be flung open for the reception of the stranger knight and his train. In a few minutes the cavalcade arrived. First came two harbingers with wands; next a herald, followed by two pages and two trumpeters; then a hundred foot-guards. These were attended by as many horse. After them fifty footmen, clothed in scarlet and black, the colours of the knight; then a led horse. Two heralds on each side of a gentleman on horseback, bearing a banner, with the arms of Vicenza and Otranto quarterly—a circumstance that much offended Manfred, but he stifled his resentment. Two more pages; the knight’s confessor telling his beads; fifty more footmen clad as before; two knights habited in complete armour, their beavers down, comrades to the principal knight; the squires of the two knights, carrying their shields and devices; the knight’s own squire; a hundred gentlemen bearing an enormous sword, and seeming to faint under the weight of it. The knight himself, on a chestnut steed, in complete armour, his lance in the rest, his face entirely concealed by his visor, which was surmounted by a large plume of scarlet and black feathers. Fifty foot-guards, with drums and trumpets, closed the procession, which wheeled off to the right and left, to make room for the principal knight.

As soon as he approached the gate, he stopped; and the herald, advancing, read again the words of the challenge. Manfred’s eyes were fixed on the gigantic sword, and he scarce seemed to attend to the cartel; but his attention was soon diverted by a tempest of wind that rose behind him: he turned, and beheld the plumes of the enchanted helmet agitated in the same extraordinary manner as before. It required intrepidity like Manfred’s not to sink under a concurrence of circumstances that seemed to announce his fate. Yet, scorning in the presence of strangers to betray the courage he had always manifested, he said boldly:

“Sir Knight, whoever thou art, I bid thee welcome. If thou art of mortal mould, thy valour shall meet its equal; and if thou art a true knight, thou wilt scorn to employ sorcery to carry thy point. Be these omens from heaven or hell, Manfred trusts to the righteousness of his cause, and to the aid of St. Nicholas,