that there is in this
alliance a fitness and a propriety which will insure your happiness: and
may the spirit of my sainted mother look down from the empyrean palace
where she dwells, and bless you both, even as I now implore the divine
mercy to shed its beauties and diffuse its protecting influence around
you."

Nisida had raised herself up to a sitting posture as she uttered this
invocation so sublimely interesting and solemnly sincere; and the
youthful pair, simultaneously yielding to the same impulse, sank upon
their knees to receive the blessing of one who had never bestowed a
blessing on mortal being until then! She extended her hands above those
two beautiful, bending heads: and her voice, as she adjured Heaven to
protect them, was plaintively earnest and tremulously clear, and its
musical sound seemed to touch the finest chord of sympathy, devotion,
and love that vibrated in the hearts of that youthful noble and his
virgin bride. When this solemn ceremony was accomplished, an immense
weight appeared to have been removed from the soul of the Lady Nisida of
Riverola; and her countenance wore a calm and sweet expression, which
formed a happy contrast with the sovereign hauteur and grand contempt
that were wont to mark it.

"I have now but little more to say in explanation of my past conduct,"
she resumed, after a long pause. "You can readily divine wherefore I
affected the loss of those most glorious faculties which God has given
me. I became enthusiastic in my resolves to carry out the injunctions of
my dear and much-loved mother; and while I lay upon a bed of sickness--a
severe illness produced by anguish and horror at all I had heard from
her lips, and by her death, so premature and sad--I pondered a thousand
schemes, the object of which was to accomplish the great aims I had in
view. I foresaw that I--a weak woman--then, indeed, a mere girl of
fifteen--should have to constitute myself the protectress of a brother
who was hated by his own father; and I feared lest that hatred should
drive him to the adoption of some dreadful plot to rid himself of your
presence, Francisco--perhaps even to deprive you of your life. I knew
that I must watch all his movements and listen to all his conversations
with those unprincipled wretches who are ever ready to do the bidding of
the powerful and the wealthy. But how was all this to be
accomplished?--how was I to become a watcher and a listener--a spy ever
active, and an eave