“Isidora blushed at this anonymous vanity, while she mildly smiled or wept at the harassings of Don Fernan, and the heartless austerity of her mother. “I heard her as I entered the hovel; and, by the habit I wear, I paused on the threshold with delight. Her first words were----Check-mate!” he exclaimed, forgetting his homily in his triumph, and pointing, with appealing eye, and emphatic finger, to the desperate state of his adversary’s king. “That was a very extraordinary exclamation!” said the literal Donna Clara, who had never raised her eyes from her work.--“I did not think my daughter was so fond of chess as to burst into the house of a dying beggar with such a phrase in her mouth.”--“It was I said it, Madonna,” said the priest, reverting to his game, on which he hung with soul and eye intent on his recent victory. “Holy saints!” said Donna Clara, still more and more perplexed, “I thought the usual phrase on such occasions was _pax vobiscum_, or”---- Before Father Jose could reply, a shriek from Isidora pierced the ears of every one. All gathered round her in a moment, reinforced by four female attendants and two pages, whom the unusual sound had summoned from the antichamber. Isidora had not fainted; she still stood among them pale as death, speechless, her eye wandering round the groupe that encircled her, without seeming to distinguish them. But she retained that presence of mind which never deserts woman where a secret is to be guarded, and she neither pointed with finger, or glanced with eye, towards the casement, where the cause of her alarm had presented itself. Pressed with a thousand questions, she appeared incapable of answering them, and, declining assistance, leaned against the casement for support.