"And nearly the same result!--My answer to the enquiry of his highness was _verbatim_ the same; that the matter was not worth asking after. This white rose of the Meuse was not so much as of a chapteral-house. Some piece of provincial obscurity that had issued from the shade, to fill a place in the royal Coranto, in consequence of the indisposition of one of the noble daughters of the house of Croy. Still, as in the matter of the cow-hunt, his highness had the malice to persist! And next day, instead of allowing me to attend him in his barging with the royal Cleopatra of this confounded Cydnus of Brabant, I was dispatched into all quarters of Namur to seek out a pretty child with silken hair and laughing eyes, whom some silly grandam had snatched out of its nursery to parade at a royal fête.--Holy St Laurence! how my soul grilled within my skin!--I did, as you may suppose, as much of his highness's pleasure as squared with my own; and had the satisfaction of informing him, on his return, that the bird had fled."-- "And there was an end of the matter?"-- "I hoped so! But I am not precisely the confessor his highness is likely to select when love constitutes the sin. At all events, the bustle of Margaret's departure for Spa, the care of the royal escort, and the payment of all that decency required us to take upon ourselves of the cost of our hospitality, engrossed my time and thoughts. But the first time the Infant beset me, (as he has doubtless done yourself,) with his chapter of lamentations over the sufferings of Belgium,--the lawlessness of the camp--the former loyalty of the provinces--the tenderness of conscience of the heretics,--and the eligibility of forbearance and peace,--I saw as plain as though the word were inscribed by the burning finger of Satan, that the turkois eyes and flaxen ringlets were the text of all this snivelling humanity!' "Blessings on the tender consciences of the heretics, who were burning Antwerp and Ghent, and plundering the religious houses and putting their priests to the sword!" ejaculated Gonzaga.