Her eldest daughter, the Lady Isabella, inherited with her mother’s name, a large portion of her personal and mental qualities; but while one was a woman and a queen, the other was a young princess, proud, impatient of control or contradiction, and delighting in magnificence and admiration. Her younger sister, the Lady Joanna, though she had a fine form and regular features, with the dark, languid eyes of her country, was destitute of that grace and vivacity which is the great charm in woman’s character. The warm blood never gave a living glow to the dark olive of her complexion, and it was seldom that the deep fringes of her eyelids were lifted sufficiently to allow those with whom she conversed to mark the beautiful and flitting shadows of the deep and sweet emotions of her loving spirit. “Oh, mother!” cried the young Isabella, her whole person radiant with the spirit’s light, “oh, mother, what a glorious thing it is to be a queen’s daughter; to live in such magnificence, to be an object of admiration and worship, to listen while gay and noble cavaliers extol one’s beauty and accomplishments; but, mother, it is my highest glory that I am _your_ child, your namesake, and like you in mind and person. Oh, how my heart swelled last night as I heard men speak of the truly royal Isabella of Castile. But, mother, I am not quite as noble-souled as you, for I heard them tell that in your girlhood, when the discontented nobles and people would have placed you on your brother’s throne, you utterly refused to consent to his being deposed, and only allowed yourself to be declared his successor. I could not have been so moderate; oh, I long to be a queen like you.” “A queen!” murmured Joanna, who occupied a cushion at her mother’s feet, “a queen,” and her voice was low and sweet as the murmur of a guitar, when its strings are moved by the orange-scented breeze alone. “I would be queen of one loving heart alone. I ask no kingdom beyond a quiet home, with one to love me, dearly, truly, unchangingly, as I could love again. Oh, mother, I am weary of all this noise and show; my heart grows sick, as I mark these glorious things, and feel that they are spoils of war, relics of a fallen power, trophies of a victory achieved by bloodshed, fire, famine, and pestilence. Do not frown, dear mother, my queen; but I cannot help thinking of the loving hearts, and beautiful women, and tender babes that perished in Grenada. They were infidels, but they had human hearts; they loved, and were beloved, and, oh, what bitter sundering of holy ties was in that devoted city. I cannot rejoice in such dreadful victory; I dare not thank our merciful Father in Heaven that he has permitted our armies to inflict such a vast amount of misery, not only on our armed foes, but on their helpless and innocent families.”