t among their play-fellows; both young,
beautiful, and amiable. A royal child the one, the other a daughter of
the Balthes. The girls were about to choose a queen of the games. They
chose Gothelindis, for she was still more handsome than you, and not so
tyrannical. And they chose her twice in succession. But the King's
daughter stood near, devoured by ungovernable pride and envy, and when
they chose me for the third time she took up a pair of sharp-pointed
gardener's scissors----"

"Stop! Oh! be silent, Gothelindis!"

"And hurled it at me. It hit me. Screaming' with pain and bleeding, I
fell to the ground, my whole cheek one yawning wound, and my eye, my
eye pierced through! Ah! how it still pains, even to-day!"

"Forgive, pardon me, Gothelindis!" cried Amalaswintha. "You have
pardoned me long ago."

"Forgive? I forgive you? Shall I forgive you when you have robbed me of
my eye, and of all my beauty? You conquered for life! Gothelindis was
no more dangerous as a rival. She lamented in secret; the disfigured
girl hid from the eyes of mankind. And years passed. Then there came to
the court of Ravenna a noble Amelung from Spain; Eutharic with his dark
eyes and tender soul. And he, himself sick, took pity upon the sick and
half-blind girl. He spoke to her with affection and kindness; spoke to
the ugly, disfigured creature whom all the others avoided. And it was
decided--in order to eradicate the ancient enmity between our families,
and to expiate old and new guilt--for Duke Alaric had been condemned in
consequence of a secret and unproved accusation--that the poor ill-used
daughter of the Balthes should become the wife of the noblest of the
Amelungs. But when you heard this, you, who had so terribly disfigured
me, were resolved to deprive me also of my lover! Not out of jealousy,
no; not because you loved him, no; but from mere pride. Because you
were determined to keep the first man in the kingdom and the heir to
the crown to yourself. And you succeeded; for your father could deny
you nothing, and Eutharic soon forgot his compassion for the one-eyed
girl, when the hand of the beautiful Amalaswintha was offered to him.
In recompense--or was it only in mockery?--they gave me, too, to an
Amelung; to Theodahad, that miserable coward?"

"Gothelindis, I swear to you, I never suspected that you loved
Eutharic. How could I----"

"To be sure! how could you believe that the disfigured girl could
place her heart so high? Oh, y