not thy husband!' And
with this she went away."

"That is of little comfort as far as I can make it out."

"Thou dost not understand the old wife's sayings; they are all so dark.
She adds a threat to every promise, so as to be safe in all cases. But
I hold fast to the bright and not to the dark side. I know that he
will be mine, and give me glory and good fortune; I will bear the
accompanying pain. Pain for his sake is delight."

"I admire thee and thy faith, mistress. And for the saying of the witch
thou hast refused all the kings and princes. Vandals and Ostrogoths,
from Gaul and Burgondia, who have ever wooed thee? Even Germanus, the
imperial prince of Byzantium? And you wait for him?"

"And I wait for him! But not only because of this saying. In my heart
lives a little bird, which sings to me every day, 'He will be thine, he
must be thine.' I know it for a certainty," she concluded, raising her
eyes to the sky, and relapsing into her former reverie.

Steps were heard approaching from the villa.

"Ah!" cried Aspa, "thy dainty suitor! Poor Arahad! his trouble is in
vain."

"I will make an end to it," said Mataswintha, rising, and on her brow
and in her young eyes there now lay an angry severity, which told of
the Amelung blood in her veins. There was a strange mixture of burning
passion and melting tenderness in the girl. Aspa had often been
astonished by the repressed fire which her mistress sometimes betrayed.
"Thou art like the divine mountains of my home," she said, "snow on the
summit, roses round the middle, but consuming fire in the interior,
which often streams over snow and roses."

Meanwhile Earl Arahad turned out of the shady path, and approached the
lovely girl with a blush which became him well.

"I come, Queen----" he began.

But she harshly interrupted him.

"I hope, Earl of Asta, that at last thou comest to put an end to this
despicable game of force and lies. I will bear it no longer. Thy bold
brother surprises me--me, the helpless orphan, lost in sorrow for her
mother--in my apartments, calls me in one breath his Queen and his
prisoner, and keeps me for weeks in unworthy confinement. He gives me
the purple, and deprives me of liberty. Then thou comest and tormentest
me with thy vain pursuit, which will never succeed. I refused thee when
at liberty. Dost thou believe, thou fool, that, a prisoner in thy
power, the child of the Amelungs will listen to thee? Thou swearest
that thou lovest