Doña Hermosa, (may her memory be kept green!) suffered no one to overhear poor Viola’s ravings, but the solemn parish physician, (notwithstanding whom, she recovered,) and a trusty maid-servant; and when the crisis had passed, prepared with her own hands, delicacies of every kind found in her recipe book. Viola showed her sense of such unaccustomed petting, poor child, by tasting every thing and smiling feebly, and Doña Hermosa, woman-like, felt her charge every day, growing more into her heart, by reason of her very helplessness and docility. After a little, the elder lady laid herself out to rival Scheherazade, and told the invalid all sorts of pleasant stories to while away the time, varied with readings from the half dozen books constituting the knight’s library: she left nothing undone, which might remove the indefinably sad expression about her young guest’s mouth, and coax her thoughts into some other channel than that in which they seemed commonly to run. And I am of opinion if any diversion of the sort had been practicable at the time, the occupation to which these ladies devoted part of one week, rummaging the stores of curiosities, first in the castle and afterward in Don Pedro’s lesser keep, would have served the desired purpose. During this period, Señora Padilh showed Señorita Inique her wedding dress, (of course,) and afterward the very doublet in which Don Pedro had adorned himself with unusual finery, at the same auspicious era. She drew the arras aside and exhibited it, hanging a little apart from its more homely fellows, with much pride, thinking all the time what the dear old knight was that moment doing, and whether he had looked at it often, and with the same happy associations she now did, when he was at home: and when Viola walked on, her interest in the knight’s wardrobe being naturally limited, she stroked the velvet softly with one white hand, and looking quickly around, raised the sleeve to her lips twice at least. It was a silly action, of course, for a lady of her time of life—she was nearly thirty now—but who of us has not done more foolish things with less cause?—and there is something, so altogether winning and admirable in the untutored fealty of the sex for ours, when allowed to appear, that I can’t help despising the man who makes the pretty weaknesses of a wife or sweetheart, a target for his shallow wit. The wife of our knight was so occupied with her thoughts, that she did not at first observe Viola, who had retired to the embrasure of a window, and by the position of her head—she stood with her face directed to a landscape without, but cognizant of nothing out of her own brain—was quietly weeping.