nized his gentle Anne,
with downcast looks; he almost fancied he saw her blush, as her young
bridegroom, young and beautiful as herself, whispered love's flatteries
in her ear. He saw farther on, but yet near, his own sweet countess, and
muttered, "After twenty years of marriage, may Anne be as dear to him as
thou art now to me!" And still he saw, or deemed he saw, his lady's eye,
after resting with tender happiness on the young pair, rove wistfully
around, as if missing and searching for her partner in her mother's joy.
But what form sweeps by with so haughty a majesty, then pauses by the
betrothed, addresses them not, but seems to regard them with so fixed a
watch? He knew by her ducal diadem, by the baudekin colours of her
robe, by her unmistakable air of pride, his daughter Isabel. He did not
distinguish the expression of her countenance, but an ominous thrill
passed through his heart; for the attitude itself had an expression, and
not that of a sister's sympathy and love. He turned away his face
with an unquiet recollection of the altered mood of his discontented
daughter. He looked again: the duchess had passed on, lost amidst the
confused splendour of the revel. And high and rich swelled the merry
music that invited to the stately pavon. He gazed still; his lady had
left her place, the lovers too had vanished, and where they stood, stood
now in close conference his ancient enemies, Exeter and Somerset. The
sudden change from objects of love to those associated with hate had
something which touched one of those superstitions to which, in all
ages, the heart, when deeply stirred, is weakly sensitive. And again,
forgetful of the revel, the earl turned to the serener landscape of the
grove and the moonlit green sward, and mused and mused, till a soft arm
thrown round him woke his revery. For this had his lady left the revel.
Divining, by the instinct born of love, the gloom of her husband, she
had stolen from pomp and pleasure to his side.

"Ah, wherefore wouldst thou rob me," said the countess, "of one hour
of thy presence, since so few hours remain; since, when the sun that
succeeds the morrow's shines upon these walls, the night of thine
absence will have closed upon me?"

"And if that thought of parting, sad to me as thee, suffice not, belle
amie, to dim the revel," answered the earl, "weetest thou not how ill
the grave and solemn thoughts of one who sees before him the emprise
that would change the dynasty of a