Leonora became fond, too, of the decoration of her person. Jewels, and cloth of gold, and rich embroidery decked those lovely hands and arms, or were wreathed in the clustering masses of her jetty hair, or arrayed those graceful limbs; and her tire-women had no longer reason to complain that she forgot her station or neglected her apparel as they had once done. To them she was gentleness itself; but the suitors who still would ask her hand could not but feel that their dismissal had something of the sting of scorn in it. She strove to soften it, but she could not; and the beautiful lip would curl, however mild the words might be, as if she thought it strange that any man could think she would condescend to bestow herself on him. It must be said, however, that no one had any right to complain of having been led on to love merely to be refused. No approving smile ever encouraged the first advance; and if the attentions were too marked to be misunderstood, a sudden coldness gave the answer without a word. Once only she showed her contempt plainly. It was when a nobleman of pride and power declared he would appeal from her decision to her father. She told him her father had no power to wed her to a man whom she despised, and, if he ever had possessed it, he had given her fate into her own hands long before. "I have his promise," she said--"a promise that, for good or bad, has not yet been broken to human being--that he will never, even by word, urge me to wed mortal man. So now go, my lord, and appeal to whom you will, but let me not see you any more. I am no man's slave, not even a father's." There were violent things done in Italy in those days; and I know not whether it was some idle but threatening words, muttered by this bold lover as he left her, or the rumour that Imola was soon to be visited by Cæsar Borgia--the only being on earth she seemed to fear--that had led her to a step which must be told. There was a monastery of Cistercian monks upon a hill some five miles distant from Imola, and, in the early morning of a summer's day, a gallant cavalcade of some eight horsemen and three women, with Leonora at their head, stopped at the gates. She dismounted, and, bidding the attendants wait, went in alone. She asked the porter to call Father Angelo to her; but the old man, when he came, evidently knew her not. He was a servile-looking, shrewd-eyed man, and her air, as well as her attire, impressed him. "What is it, daughter?" he said. "Can I give you any spiritual aid?" Leonora fixed her lustrous eyes upon him, and seemed to look into his very heart. "No, father," she answered; "I have my own confessor, and a holy and good man he is. It is aid of another kind I seek from you. I have heard that you have cultivated much the natural sciences, know all the secret virtues of herbs and minerals, and have prepared drugs which will remove from earth a dangerous friend or a potent enemy."