"Ay, if your Queen stand security for the lady's consent, and if _I stand security for it likewise_," said the monk--"what have you to say against the union then? Look at her again, lord. Is not she _a lovely_ and _angelic_ being? Confess the truth now. For I know it to be the truth, that never since you could distinguish beauty from deformity, have your eyes beheld _so lovely_ and _so angelic_ a lady? Pressed down by misfortunes, too! Does that not add a triple charm to all her excellencies? You know what has been done for her? what has been suffered for her? what a noble and gallant life was laid down for her? Was such a sacrifice ever made for a lady or princess of your own country? No, never, heroic lord! Therefore bless your stars that have paved out a way for your union with such a _lovely_, _angelic_, and _matchless lady_; and take her! take her to your longing and aching bosom." "Moderate your fervour, holy brother," said the Douglas, "which appears to me rather to be running to unwarrantable extremes. Granting that the lady Jane Howard is perhaps unequalled in beauty and elegant accomplishments----" "Is she not so? Is she not so?" cried the monk with a fervour that raised his voice to a scream of passion: "Did I not say that she was? And now am I not warranted by your own sentiments, _freely expressed_ enough. Sure, lord, you cannot deny that I said, that I told you, the lady was _peerless in beauty and accomplishments_? I knew it, and told you before that she was the _queen of beauty_. Why then do you hesitate, and make all this foolish opposition to an union which we all know you are eager to consummate? Yes; you are: And we all know it. You are!" "Holy brother, what unaccountable phrenzy has seized upon you," said the Douglas; "and why all this extravagant waste of declamation? Let me not hear another sentence, nor another word on the subject: only suffer me to finish what I had begun. I say then, granting that the lady Jane were peerless in beauty and accomplishments, still there is an impression engraven on my heart that can never be removed, or give place to another; and there will I cherish it as sacred, till the day of my death. And, that no reckless importunity may ever be wasted on me again, here I kneel before the holy rood, which I kiss, and swear before God and his holy angels, that since I have been bereaved of the sovereign mistress of my heart and all my affections,--of her in whom all my hopes of happiness in this world were placed, and who to me was all in all of womankind--that never shall another of the sex be folded in the arms of Douglas, or call him husband! So help me thou Blessed One, and all thy holy saints and martyrs, in the performance of this vow!"