The short interval between this period and that which was to crown or to blast all their expectations, was spent by the young friends in active preparation, and by Kara Aziek and her daughter in the most agitating anxiety. The stimulus thus given to the nerves of Kara Aziek, imparted a transient hope of returning health: a bright glow was ever on her cheek, a brighter light for ever in her eye. With a motive for desiring life, the power of retaining life seemed to be granted; and while she opened her heart to receive the sanguine anticipations of Blanche and Hyppolito, they fondly fancied that her hour of danger was passed. The Duchess Medina Sidonia was wilfully kept ignorant of the important affair now agitating: Hyppolito secretly resolved to meet the punishment of his temerity alone, (should any chance discover it to King Philip) since, if he could solemnly swear and prove that his parents were not accessary to the act, he justly believed that not even the deadliest tyrant would dare violate their lives, or their fortunes. The evening preceding that on which Sebastian was to be carried off, Aziek and her daughter were removed to the fishing lodge of Hyppolito, (a lone house almost buried among rocks and thickets) of which only one purblind domestic had the charge. Hyppolito suggested this place as more suited to an invalid than a noisy sea-port, besides which he urged, that his mother, who might not hazard the singular act of visiting a humble individual in her mean abode, might safely give them the meeting here, and occasionally come to share in the pious cares of Blanche. Satisfied with so natural and considerate an arangement, the Duchess hastened to embrace the suffering Aziek, whom even this short journey contributed to enfeeble. Knowing the effect which solicitude too highly raised, ever produced on her mother, Blanche forbade Hyppolito to mention the real night of his enterprize; certain that such an enterprize was on the point of execution, she would in some degree be prepared for its failure or success, yet being deceived as to the precise instant would spare her the useless torture of suspence. Obedient to this judicious injunction, on the very evening of their plot, the young friends named a succeeding one, and departed for St. Lucar. Blanche had now to rouse up the whole force of her spirit to support the hard task of concealing an agitation which amounted to agony. As she hung over the couch of her pallid mother, indistinct apostrophe’s to Heaven, perpetually faltered on her lips, while hiding the flush of her cheeks and the restless wandering of her eye, from the unconscious Duchess, she strove to smile and to talk on subjects of trivial interest.