ad returned to the home of his childhood, there to fix
his permanent abode; only to make such excursions from it, as the
interests of his niece might demand. Her destiny was his sole anxious
thought. Her detention by Isabella convinced him that her disguise had
been penetrated, and filled him with solicitude for her spiritual, yet
more than her temporal welfare. Royal protection of a Jewess was
so unprecedented, that it could only argue the hope--nay, perhaps
conviction--of her final conversion. And the old man actually tried to
divorce the sweet image of his niece from his affections, so convinced
was he that her unhappy love for Arthur, combined with Isabella's
authority, and, no doubt, the threat of some terrible alternative
should she refuse, would compel her acceptance of the proffered cross,
and so sever them for ever. How little can man, even the most gentle
and affectionate, read woman!

It was the day completing the eleventh month after Don Ferdinand's
murder, when Julien Morales repaired earlier than usual to the little
temple, there to read the service for the dead appointed for the day,
and thence proceeded to his nephew's grave. An unusual object, which
had fallen on, or was kneeling beside the grave, caught his eye, and
impelled him to quicken his pace. His heart throbbed as he recognized
the garb of a novice, and to such a degree as almost to deprive him of
all power, as in the white, chiselled features, resting on the cold,
damp sod, he recognized his niece, and believed, for the first
agonizing moment, that it was but clay resting against clay; and that
the sweet, pure spirit had but guided her to that grave and flown. But
death for a brief interval withdrew his grasp; though his shaft had
reached her, and no human hand could draw it back. Father Denis had
conducted her so carefully and tenderly to the frontiers of Castile,
that she had scarcely felt fatigue, and encountered no exposure to the
elements; but when he left her, her desire to reach her home became
stronger, with the seeming physical incapacity to do so. Her spirit
gave way, and mental and bodily exhaustion followed. The season was
unusually damp and tempestuous, and, though scarcely felt at the time,
sowed the seeds of cold and decline, from which her naturally good
constitution might, in the very midst of her trials, otherwise have
saved her. Her repugnance to encounter the eyes or speech of her
fellows, lest her disguise should be penetra