"Sluggish is she, the lazy jade," said the old woman, and shook the fair slumberer awake: "she can do nothing but pray and sleep, the useless baggage." Crescentia roused herself, and her confusion still hightened her beauty. Antonio felt on the brink of madness at thus again seeing before him one whom he had yet lost for ever. "Old witch!" he cried out vehemently: "where am I? and what forms art thou bringing before my wandering senses? Speak, who is this lovely being? Crescentia, art thou alive again? Dost thou still acknowledge me as thine own! How camest thou hither?" "Holla! my young prince," screamed the old woman; "you are gabbling away there, as though you had quite lost your little bit of an understanding. Is the storm beating about inside of your pate? has the lightning perchance singed your brains? She is my daughter, and always has been so." "I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I was never in the city." "Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have to give you." The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent Florentine wine. Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia; and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore persuading him anew that this was his lost bride. Then again he often fancied he was lying enchained by a heavy dream, or had been seized by a trance of madness which was transforming every object around him, so that he was perhaps still in Padua, or at his own home, and saw nothing but phantasmal forms, and could not recognize or understand any of the friends who might be round about consoling him or mourning over him. The storm had raved itself out, and the stars were shining in the pacified dark sky. The old woman ate greedily, and drank still more plenteously of the sweet wine. "Now at length, young Antonio," she began after some time, "tell us, prithee, what brought you to Padua, and what has driven you hither?" Antonio started as from sleep. "You may well," he replied, "demand some account of your guest, since, beside that reason, you knew my father, and it may be my mother too." "To be sure I knew her," said the old woman sniggering; "nobody so well as I. Yes, yes, she died just six months before your father celebrated his second marriage with the Marchesa Manfredi." "So you know that too?" "Why, it seems to me," she continued, "as though I could see the dainty trim doll at this very moment before me. Well, is your beautiful stepmother still living? When they drove me out of the country she was just in her prime full bloom."