The Baron, who had not the remotest idea of the state of the case, grieved and afflicted his daughter beyond measure by the manner in which he abused her lover upon every possible occasion. Mathilde, poor girl, bore it all with exemplary fortitude, although she invariably endeavoured to turn the conversation into more pleasant channels. But when the matter went beyond words, and her father actually commenced to make preparations to invade his enemy’s country and destroy his castle, the agony of the poor young lady can be more easily imagined than described. She came down each morning with eyes red from crying all through the night; she grew daily paler and paler; lost her appetite; could scarcely take her five o’clock tea; sat with her hands before her, doing nothing; and burst out into hysterical fits of sobbing upon the slightest provocation. This sad condition of his daughter troubled the worthy baron not a little, and, naturally attributing it to any and every cause but the right one, he determined to try what change of air would do for her, and accordingly sent her to stay with {109}his sister, who was the superior of a convent in Reading. Here it was his hope that the society of the nuns would cheer the sweet damsel and restore her spirits, whilst the change of air and scenery might benefit her health. There were those, indeed, including her faithful old Saxon nurse Elfreda, who declared that the conversation of nuns was, as a rule, anything but enlivening, and Reading by no means particularly healthy or reinvigorating; but as nobody dared question the Baron’s superior wisdom upon every subject, nothing was said against his plan, and Mathilde de Guerre-à-mort was safely transmitted to and domesticated in the convent just before the expedition against her lover’s castle was undertaken by her respected parent.