The jailor retired; and Mr. M--------, shuddering as he contemplated the close and gloomy little apartment, its sorry furniture, and grated windows, where the suffering Glorvina had been imprisoned with her father, briefly related to the nurse that, having learnt the misfortunes of the Prince, he had followed him to the prison, in the hope of being able to give him some assistance, if not to effect his liberation. The old woman was as usual garrulous and communicative; she wept alternately the Prince’s sufferings and tears of joy for his release; talked sometimes of the generosity of the good friend, who had, she said, “been the saviour of them all,” and sometimes of the Christian fortitude of the Prince; but still dwelt most on the virtues and afflictions of her young lady, whom she frequently termed _a saint out of heaven_, a suffering-angel, and a martyr. She then related the circumstances of the Prince’s imprisonment in terms so affecting, yet so simple, that her own tears dropt not faster than those of her auditor. She said that she believed they had looked for assistance from their concealed friend until the last moment, when the Prince, unable to struggle any longer, left his sick bed for the prison of --------; that Glorvina had supported her father during their melancholy journey in her arms, without suffering even a tear, much less a complaint to escape her; that she had supported his spirits and her own as though she were more than human, until the physician who attended the Prince gave him over; that then her distraction (when out of the presence of her father) knew no bounds; and that once they feared her senses were touched. When, at a moment when they were all reduced to despair, the mysterious friend arrived, paid the debt for which the Prince was confined, and had carried them off the evening before, by a more tedious but less rugged road than that she supposed Mr. M-------- had taken, by which means he had probably missed them. “For all this, (continued the old woman weeping) my child will never be happy: she is sacrificing herself for her father, and he will not live to enjoy the benefit of it. The gentleman is indeed good and comely to look at; and his being old enough to be her father matters nothing; but then love is not to be commanded, though duty may.”