The saddest period of Kara Aziek’s life was now present: she lived forlorn of every comfort except only the humble attentions of her servant, and the occasional sight of him from whom she once fondly hoped nothing less than death would ever have parted her. She beheld this object of her heart’s idolatry, loaded with chains, and condemned to the vilest of human stations: her imagination pictured the closing scene of this dismal tragedy, and presented him at the stake, or on the block. Her amiable daughter was now far away, and too probably the eyes of each fond parent would close for ever without beholding her again. Their private friends were dead, or dispersed; their more potent ones, the sovereigns of Europe, changed by circumstances, or rendered powerless from necessities of their own. All around was dark and dreary; and wherever she looked, still the same black horizon shut in her fate. Where is the spirit that can resist calamities so heavy? Religion may enable us to curb complaint, to submit with humility and a thorough conviction that he who ordains, is all-wise, and all good; but not even religion can benumb “the nerve whence agony is born:” The heart may break while it yields. Kara Aziek felt hers to be fast decaying: sorrow wasted her bodily strength, and with it her mental energy. A deep sadness was fixed upon her countenance, and heavy and continual sighs (of which she was herself unconscious) told the attached Baptista, that her suffering mistress was hastening to the repose of Heaven. At this period, Baptista unexpectedly heard that the family of Medina Sidonia had a residence in the neighbourhood of St. Lucar, and were coming to visit it: she imparted this to Kara Aziek, believing Paula likely to be in the Duchess’s suite, and knowing of no other interesting object; this intelligence lifted up the soul of the fond mother; she hazarded a letter to the Duchess through the medium of Paula, and remained with trembling eagerness anticipating an answer. CHAP. VII. Some days had passed in anxious expectation, when in the dusk of evening, a man in a domestic’s habit appeared at the obscure abode of Baptista, and announcing himself sent by the Duchess Medina, urged admittance to Kara Aziek. She received him alone. Having cautiously closed the door, the stranger threw off his cloak and hat, and Kara Aziek saw at her feet a young and handsome man, on whose intelligent countenance nature’s hand had stamped truth and goodness. “It is the Queen of Portugal to whom I bend my knee?” said the animated youth, with a look that demanded if he were right. Kara Aziek answered with ready tears, “Alas! it is the most desolate of women--the wife of him whom would to God I could say was not born to a throne but you come from the Duchess of Medina Sidonia--know you her young companion--Blanche?”