ng smile,
she thought she caught a glimpse of the future, and beheld the
predecessor of him who some day would receive similar homage.

Why should she not have yielded to such hopes? Already there was a rumour
that the daughter of the Emperor and that Johanna Van der Gheynst, who
had been Charles's first love, Margaret of Parma, her own son's sister,
had been chosen to rule the Netherlands as regent.

Why should less honours await Charles's son than his daughter?

But the festal joy in the gay capital was suddenly extinguished, for in
the autumn of the year that, in March, had seen Ferdinand, the Emperor's
brother, assume the imperial crown, a rumour came that the recluse of San
Yuste had closed his eyes, and a few days after it was verified.

It was Barbara's husband who told her of the loss which had befallen her
and the world. He did this with the utmost consideration, fearing the
effect of this agitating news upon his wife; but Barbara only turned
pale, and then, with tears glittering in her eyes, said softly, "He, too,
was only a mortal man."

Then she withdrew to her own room, and even on the following day saw
neither her husband nor her children. She had long expected Charles's
death, yet it pierced the inmost depths of her being.

This sorrow was something sacred, which belonged to her and to her alone.
It would have seemed a profanation to reveal it to her unloved husband,
and she found strength to shut it within herself.

How desolate her heart seemed! It had lost its most distinguished object
of love or hate.

Through long days she devoted herself in quiet seclusion to the memory of
the dead, but soon her active imagination unfolded its wings again, and
with the new grief mingled faint hopes for the boy in Spain, which
increased to lofty anticipations and torturing anxiety.

The imperial father was dead. What now awaited the omnipotent ruler's
son?

How had Charles determined his fate?

Was it possible that he still intended him for the monastic life, now
that he had become acquainted with his talents and tastes?

Since Barbara had learned that her son had won his father's heart, and
that the Emperor, as it were, had made him his own with a kiss, she had
grown confident in the hope that Charles would bestow upon him the
grandeur, honours, and splendour which she had anticipated when she
resigned him at Landshut, and to which his birth gave him a claim. But
her early experience that what she expe