est to the lowest, congratulated
Isabella, Richard, and their parents, and prayed for their happiness as
they took leave of them. Eight days afterwards, Richard and Isabella
were united before the altar, their marriage being honoured by the
presence of the chief justice, and all the persons of distinction in
Seville. Thus, after so many vicissitudes, Isabella's parents recovered
their daughter, and re-established their fortune; and she, favoured by
heaven, and aided by her many virtues, in spite of so many crosses and
troubles, obtained for her husband a man so deserving as Richard, with
whom it is believed that she lives to this day, in the house facing
Santa Paula, which her father had hired, and which they subsequently
bought of the heirs of a gentleman of Burgos, named Hernando Cifuentes.

This tale may teach us what virtue and what beauty can effect, since
they are sufficient together, or either singly, to win the love even of
enemies; and how Heaven is able to bring forth our greatest happiness
even out of our heaviest misfortunes.

THE FORCE OF BLOOD.

One night, after a sultry summer's day, an old hidalgo of Toledo walked
out to take the air by the river's side, along with his wife, his little
boy, his daughter aged sixteen, and a female servant. Eleven o'clock had
struck: it was a fine clear night: they were the only persons on the
road; and they sauntered leisurely along, to avoid paying the price of
fatigue for the recreation provided for the Toledans in their valley or
on the banks of their river. Secure as he thought in the careful
administration of justice in that city, and the character of its
well-disposed inhabitants, the good hidalgo was far from thinking that
any disaster could befal his family. But as misfortunes commonly happen
when they are least looked for, so it chanced with this family, who were
that night visited, in the midst of their innocent enjoyment, by a
calamity which gave them cause to weep for many a year.

There was in that city a young cavalier, about two-and-twenty years of
age, whom wealth, high birth, a wayward disposition, inordinate
indulgence, and profligate companions impelled to do things which
disgraced his rank. This young cavalier--whose real name we shall, for
good reasons, conceal under that of Rodolfo--was abroad that night with
four of his companions, insolent young roisterers like himself, and
happened to be coming down a hill as the old hidalgo and his fam