husband is better than no husband at all, did not hinder you.--
Bless me! what noise is that! St. Nicholas forgive me! I was but
in jest."

"It is the wind," said Matilda, "whistling through the battlements
in the tower above: you have heard it a thousand times."

"Nay," said Bianca, "there was no harm neither in what I said: it
is no sin to talk of matrimony--and so, Madam, as I was saying, if
my Lord Manfred should offer you a handsome young Prince for a
bridegroom, you would drop him a curtsey, and tell him you would
rather take the veil?"

"Thank Heaven! I am in no such danger," said Matilda: "you know
how many proposals for me he has rejected--"

"And you thank him, like a dutiful daughter, do you, Madam? But
come, Madam; suppose, to-morrow morning, he was to send for you to
the great council chamber, and there you should find at his elbow a
lovely young Prince, with large black eyes, a smooth white
forehead, and manly curling locks like jet; in short, Madam, a
young hero resembling the picture of the good Alfonso in the
gallery, which you sit and gaze at for hours together--"

"Do not speak lightly of that picture," interrupted Matilda
sighing; "I know the adoration with which I look at that picture is
uncommon--but I am not in love with a coloured panel. The
character of that virtuous Prince, the veneration with which my
mother has inspired me for his memory, the orisons which, I know
not why, she has enjoined me to pour forth at his tomb, all have