reasure so many years concealed from me; but
it is such a one as may well have excited you to avarice. You are bound
however to restore it to me, for by right it is mine."

"My liege," replied Clotald, "what your majesty says is quite true; I
confess my fault, if it is one, to have kept this treasure until it
arrived at the perfection suitable for appearing before your majesty's
eyes. Now that it has done so, I had it in mind to enhance it still
more, by asking your majesty's leave for Isabella to become the wife of
my son Richard."

"I like her name, too," returned the queen. "Nothing was wanting to the
fulness of her perfection but that she should be called Isabella the
Spaniard. But, mark you, Clotald, I know that, without my leave, you
have promised her to your son."

"That is true, my liege, but it was in the confident hope that the many
eminent services which my ancestors and I have rendered to the crown,
would obtain from your majesty favours still more difficult to grant
than the leave in question, the more so as my son is not yet wedded."

"Nor shall he be wedded to Isabella," said the queen, "until he has
merited it in his own person. I mean that I will not have him avail
himself to that end of your services or those of his forefathers. He
must himself prepare to serve me, and win by his own deserts this prize
which I esteem as if she were my daughter."

The queen had no sooner uttered these last words than Isabella again
fell on her knees before her, saying in Spanish, "Such thwartings as
these, most gracious sovereign, are rather to be esteemed auspicious
boons than misfortunes. Your majesty has given me the name of daughter;
after that what can I have to fear, or what may I not hope?"

Isabella uttered this with so winning a grace, that the queen conceived
an extreme affection for her, desired that she should remain in her
service, and committed her to the care of a great lady, her keeper of
the robes, who was to instruct her in the duties of her new position.

Richard, who saw himself thus, as it were, deprived of his life in
losing Isabella, was almost at his wits' end. Agitated and discomfited,
he knelt before the queen, and said, "I need no other rewards to induce
me to serve your majesty than such as my ancestors have obtained in the
service of your royal predecessors; but since it is your majesty's
pleasure that I should have new motives and incentives for my zeal, I
would crave to know in what