et for which he longs, what tasks he will set himself! Don
Philip promises, as an obedient son, to continue to wield the sceptre
according to the policy of the father who intrusts it to him."

"And then?" asked Barbara eagerly.

"Then will begin the life in the imitation of Christ, which hovers before
him."

"Here in the Brabant palace?" interposed Barbara incredulously. "Here,
where his neighbours, the brilliant nobles, enjoy life in noisy
magnificence; here, among the ambassadors, the thousand rumours from the
Netherlands, Italy, and Spain; here, where the battle against the
heretical and liberty-loving yearnings of the citizens never ceases--how
can he hope to find peace and composure here?"

"He is far from it," Wolf eagerly interrupted. "'Farewell till we meet
again at no distant day upon Spanish soil!' were the parting words of my
gracious mistress. Will you promise secrecy?"

Barbara held out her hand with a significant glance; but Wolf, in a lower
tone, continued: "He expects to find in Spain the peaceful spot for which
he longs. There he will commend himself to the mercy of God, and prepare
for the true life which death is to him. There he expects to be free from
time-killing business, and to grant his mind that which he has long
desired and a thousand duties forced him to withhold. There, in quiet
leisure, he hopes to strive for knowledge and to penetrate deeply into
all the new things which were discovered, invented, created, and improved
during his reign, and of which he was permitted to learn far too little
thoroughly. He will endeavour to gain a better understanding of what
stirs, fires, angers, and divides the theologians. He desires to pursue
in detail the vast new discoveries of the astronomers, which even amid
the pressure of duties he had explained to him. His inquisitive mind
seeks to know the new discoveries of navigation, the distant countries
which it brought to view. He hopes to search into the plans and works of
the architects of fortifications and makers of maps and, by no means
least, he is anxious to become thoroughly familiar with the inventions of
mechanicians, which have so long aroused his interest."

"He liked to talk to me about these things, and the power of the human
intellect, which now shows the true course of the sun and stars," Barbara
interrupted with eager assent. "He often showed me the ingenious
wheelwork of his Nuremberg clocks. Once--I still hear the words--he
compared