Her imagination, chastized by experience, and her heart disciplined by early care, would mature, fix, and ennoble her character: if Providence should call her to a throne, that education would enable her to fill it with honour; if destined to pass her life in obscurity, the memory of her parents lot, would teach her the emptiness of the world, and the rarer treasures of that benevolence which makes joy to itself in every station. If blind to the advantages of candour, Sebastian should permit Blanche to depart in ignorance of her real condition, he reflected, that she must go with either a sentiment of curiosity about the concealed motives of her parents, or with a sentiment of disappointment at their seemingly-lukewarm affection: continual deception must be practised on her; and bearing away with her no quickening principle of anxiety, her filial love would soon languish. The remembrance of her happy home, would, from its very happiness, only serve to excuse her to herself for ceasing to feel an animated interest in its inhabitants; and delivering up her young mind to the charms and novelties of a gay life, she would perhaps lose much of her goodness and all her simplicity. These reflections decided Sebastian, for Kara Aziek had decided at first, from the mere impulse of feeling. Having left his Aziek seeking additional strength at that sacred source whence human virtue is derived, he sought Gaspar, and imparted to him the resolution to which he had brought himself: Gaspar’s emotion was purely joyful; he neither dreaded dangers nor difficulties, oceans, nor dungeons, when the prospect of being useful to his King lay before him. His sanguine nature made him certain that he should not be long separated from Sebastian: the destruction of Spanish tyranny, and the restoration of Portugal, were events that he concluded must follow the interference of England; he was but leading his sweet young mistress to a triumph, not to a struggle; he was but going to make the path broad and open which led back to the throne of her ancestors. “We part, Sire! it is true;” he said, “yet what is our parting?--we shall meet again, and meet in happiness. I feel that Providence has now set a period to your trials: this is the epoch destined for the recovery of your former possessions.--We shall reach England--England will raise her powerful arm, and as if by magic, the whole mass of foreign tyranny will crumble to dust. My honoured young mistress will then be given to the Portuguese as a pledge that their beloved sovereign yet lives, and will condescend to reign over them: you will arrive, Sire, to find in your own kingdom, power, adoration, and happiness!”