FOOTNOTES: [S] See Note 8. [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. The inns at Lucca are large enough to lodge a whole regiment of soldiers; in one of these our pilgrims took up their abode, being directed thither by some of the guardians of the city gates, who delivered them to the host, so that on the morrow, or when they departed, he would have to give up an account of them. As they entered, the lady Ruperta saw a person coming out who looked like a doctor, and saying so to the hostess, she replied, that he was one. "I do not know, lady," said she, "whether the young lady is mad, or possessed by the evil one, or rather whether she is not both mad and possessed; and yet I have hopes of her recovery, if her uncle is not in too great a hurry to take her away." "Ah! good Heavens!" cried Ruperta, "and have we then got into a house of mad and possessed people; if it be so, we had much better not enter here." "Your ladyship may alight without fear," said the hostess; "and I can assure you anybody might come a hundred miles to see the sight we have in this inn." They all alighted, and Auristella and Constance, who had heard what the hostess said, asked her what she had so very well worth seeing in her house. "Come with me," said the hostess, "and you shall see what you shall see, and you will say what I say." She led the way, and they followed her into a room, where, on a gilded bed, was lying a very beautiful girl, seemingly not above sixteen or seventeen years of age; her arms were extended on either side, and tied with fillets to the balustrade of the bedstead, to prevent her moving them. Two women, who appeared to be nurses, were going to fasten her legs in a similar way, but she cried out, "It is enough to tie my arms: my own modesty will be sufficient restraint for the rest;" and then turning to the pilgrims, she said in a loud voice, "ye heavenly creatures, ye angels in human form, I doubt not but that you come to restore me to health, for what else can I expect from your beauteous presence and Christian-like visitation. If ye be what I take ye for, command them to untie these bands, for if I do give myself four or five blows it will be all I shall do, and will not hurt me much, for I am not so mad as I seem, nor he who torments me, so cruel as to torment me to death." "Poor thing! poor niece!" said an old man, who now entered the apartment; "and what is _he_ whom thou sayest will not let thee die? Commend thyself to God, Isabella, and try to eat,--not thine own fair flesh, but what thy uncle, who loves thee dearly, brings to thee:--that which flies in the air, that which lives in the water, that which feeds upon the earth, all this I would offer to thee."