The prior of Crato was expected the next morning: Sebastian saw day dawn, after passing a night of sweet wakefulness, during which the image of Donna Gonsalva had floated perpetually before him. Eager to behold her in reality, ere the return of his cousin, the King withdrew early from his attending lords, and took the road to Vimiosa. As he was proceeding to enter the path through the thicket, he saw Gonsalva at a distance, in another part of the domain, walking on a terrace, cut on the side of a hill, that overlooked the house; he hastened thither, but perceiving that she had a female companion, retreated and placed himself under the boughs of a tree. The ladies turned, and walked towards him: as they approached, his heart beat with an anxiety that surprized himself; _if Gonsalva should not see him_! he shook the branches of the tree with a trembling hand, at which she started and put aside her veil. The same bright glow of pleasure irradiated her effulgent beauty, the same smile that had charmed away the reason of Sebastian, again transported him; but she dropped her veil, and passed on without speaking. After taking several turns together, the ladies separated: the aunt of Gonsalva descended a flight of steps over which the trees hung so thick, as soon to exclude her from sight, while her fair niece at first advanced towards the grove which concealed Sebastian, and then capriciously struck into a path sloping directly from him. The impetuous monarch disturbed at the thought of her departure, sprang forward, intreating that she would stay. Gonsalva half turned round--“So, you are here again my good friend?”--she said, in a tone of careless gaiety which her sparkling looks contradicted,--“are you come to teach me another lesson out of your new catechism of female subjection?--let me tell you that air of authority that you have, is abominably provoking, and I should like vastly to break its neck: one grain of humility would make you--not absolutely hateful.” “You shall find me humbler to you, than to any other being in the world;” replied Sebastian smiling, “if you will but strive to think of me with tenderness.” Gonsalva laughed. “What a pleasant madman chance has introduced me to!--upon what do you ground these extravagant pretensions? pretensions too, so insolently urged! did you never read the Spanish author, who calls _Love, that courteous affront offered to beauty_?--prithee con over his definition and profit by it. Think of you with tenderness! why, my presumptuous friend, if I think of you at all in any way ’tis more than you should expect. Think of you with tenderness, when all I know of you is that you have a tolerable figure, which sillier women than myself may have persuaded you is irresistible!--A potentate could not woo with more authority.”