that you have accepted the gift which
she sent you, and is grateful for the kind messages which she has
received from Your Illustrious Consort, as well as the offers which you
have made her, and the addresses of the councillors. Under Niccolo da
Cusano's treatment her health has certainly improved; and the children
are very well, only the boy objects to the black clothes and hangings of
the rooms."

A week later the Councillor Pusterla wrote that he visited the Duchess
every day, and found her much rested, and already considerably calmer,
and was charged to convey her warmest thanks to the duke for his
kindness, and express her wish to show herself in all things his
obedient daughter. But she still refused to leave Pavia, and shrank from
seeing any one but her children and servants.

"The duchess," wrote Donato de Preti from Milan to his mistress Isabella
d'Este, "has not yet arrived here, but is expected on Friday. All the
rooms and furniture in the Castello are hung with black. To-day a man
who came from Pavia is said to have brought word that Count Borella had
been sent to ask the duchess for her son Francesco, but that she had
refused to send him. This, however, may not be true, for the person who
told me is not to be trusted."

On the 29th of November, the same informant wrote again--

"The widowed duchess has not yet come to Milan. It appears that she has
asked leave to remain at Pavia until after her confinement, and this she
will certainly do. I hear that she still mourns her dead lord."

Her mother-in-law, Duchess Bona, remained with her at Pavia, and here,
on the first of December, she received a visit from Chiara Gonzaga, a
sister of the Marquis of Mantua, and wife of Gilbert, Duke of
Montpensier, who was captain-general of the French army. This princess,
who was now on her way to Mantua, was sincerely attached to both
Isabella and Beatrice d'Este, and proved a loyal friend to Lodovico at
the French court, while after her husband's death he, in his turn, gave
her the benefit of his powerful help in her efforts to obtain the
recovery of her fortune from the French king. There seems, however, to
have been no truth in the report that the widowed duchess was again with
child, and on the 6th of December she finally summoned up courage to
return to Milan. On her arrival she was received by Beatrice, and
Barone, the jester, who was on the same familiar terms with the
Marchioness of Mantua as he was with her si