hailed the prospect of so unlooked-for an augmentation of national power and security; and the bishops could not but rejoice at the prospect of rescuing so many souls from the darkness of heathenism, and securing at one and the same time the propagation of the Catholic faith and the peace of Poland. But the queen herself shared not these feelings of satisfaction: no sooner had Skirgello ceased than she started from her seat, cast a hasty glance round the assembly, and, as if reading her fate in the countenances of the nobles, buried her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears. All attempts to soothe and pacify her were in vain: in a strain of passionate eloquence, which was not without its effect, she pleaded her affection for Duke William, the sacred nature of the engagement by which she was pledged to become his wife, pointed to the ring on her finger, and reminded an aged prelate who had accompanied her from Hungary that he had himself witnessed their being laid in the same cradle at the ceremony of their betrothal. It was impossible to behold unmoved the anguish of so gentle a creature; not a few of the younger chieftains espoused the cause of their sovereign; and, at the urgent solicitation of Hedwige, it was finally determined that the Lithuanian ambassadors, accompanied by three Polish nobles, should repair to Buda for the purpose of consulting her mother, the Queen of Hungary. [Footnote 41: The territories of many of the Russian or Ruthenian dukes which were conquered by the Lithuanian pagans.]