“Had you felt what I have felt, Luisa,” replied Sebastian, raising his head and fixing his eyes on her, “you would not ask that question. I was bereaved of my soul. When Kara Aziek was ravished from me by death, I saw all my faithful adherents ruined and dispersed through their fidelity to my hopeless cause; I had no other way to end their destructive efforts, and ceaseless importunities, but to remove beyond their reach. I left France and journeyed into Persia to the court of my friend Schah Abbas: twice I returned to Europe, twice embraced my children and their offspring. Twelve years ago I entered Spain a third time; I found you an orphan, and the only surviving memorial of Blanche and Hyppolito. What then could bind me to a place where but one unconscious child remained? that child one whom I dared not claim or take to myself? I departed again, and it was not till I heard in Germany, (where as his friend, yet unknown by my real name, I had followed the steps of the great Gustavus Adolphus) that you were the wife of Braganza, that I determined to return and close my life under your roof. There is something awful and striking, my child, in this union with the race of Braganza: their claim to my abdicated crown, is next to your own: those claims are now joined--what great event does Providence intend?” The young Duchess fixed on him a look of trouble mixed with heroism--“I sometimes venture to believe,” she said, “that my admirable Juan is ordained to restore the glory of Portugal. The machinations of Spain have failed hitherto of ensnaring him; he yet remains in his country, the idol of its people, the leading star of its nobles. O! my father, how many frightful plots have been formed to deprive him of life or liberty! he has ever scorned to live with less than the splendor befitting his royal blood, and has continued to spend his princely revenues in princely acts: this conduct has fixed every eye and every heart upon him alone; the Spanish court have become alarmed, and not daring to use violence, have artfully sought to entrap him by a shew of favour.”