brilliant festivities and
moonlight excursions the young lovers passed a few happy months, when
Hedwige was called home by the final sickness of her father. Louis died,
and Hedwige was immediately crowned Queen of Poland, receiving the most
enthusiastic greetings of her subjects.

Bordering on Poland there was a grand duchy of immense extent,
Lithuania, embracing sixty thousand square miles. The Grand Duke
Jaghellon was a burly Northman, not more than half civilized, whose
character was as jagged as his name. This pagan proposed to the Polish
nobles that he should marry Hedwige, and thus unite the grand duchy of
Lithuania with the kingdom of Poland; promising in that event to
renounce paganism, and embrace Christianity. The beautiful and
accomplished Hedwige was horror-struck at the proposal, and declared
that never would she marry any one but William.

But the Polish nobles, dazzled by the prospect of this magnificent
accession to the kingdom of Poland, and the bishops, even more powerful
than the nobles, elated with the vision of such an acquisition for the
Church, resolved that the young and fatherless maiden, who had no one to
defend her cause, should yield, and that she should become the bride of
Jaghellon. They declared that it was ridiculous to think that the
interests of a mighty kingdom, and the enlargement of the Church, were
to yield to the caprices of a love-sick girl.

In the meantime William, all unconscious of the disappointment which
awaited him, was hastening to Cracow, with a splendid retinue, and the
richest presents Austrian art could fabricate, to receive his bride. The
nobles, however, a semi-barbaric set of men, surrounded him upon his
arrival, refused to allow him any interview with Hedwige, threatened him
with personal violence, and drove him out of the kingdom. Poor Hedwige
was in anguish. She wept, vowed deathless fidelity to William, and
expressed utter detestation of the pagan duke, until, at last, worn out
and broken-hearted, she, in despair, surrendered herself into the arms
of Jaghellon. Jaghellon was baptized by the name of Ladislaus, and
Lithuania was annexed to Poland.

The loss of the crown of Poland was to Leopold a grievous affliction; at
the same time his armies, engaged in sundry measures of aggrandizement,
encountered serious reverses. Leopold, the father of William, by these
events was plunged into the deepest dejection. No effort of his friends
could lift the weight of his