I trembled for her life. Her dangerous situation demanded assistance without delay; but to whom should I hasten, or where could I carry her? In this emergency, as I turned my eyes anxiously around, I discovered not far distant a hermitage; I ran towards it, called the hermit, and returned with him to remove my two beloved charges, and to place them in that asylum which Heaven seemed to have prepared for me. But, oh day of grief! on returning to the place where I had left my wife, I spoke to her, and she did not answer me; I took her hand, and found it inflexible and cold: death had taken away from me this treasure, and, in the short space of my absence, my beloved wife had yielded up her soul to her Creator. Horror and desperation took possession of my breast at this sight. Grief deprived me of my senses, and, in a moment of phrensy, I wished to throw myself over a precipice, to be with her in eternity. But the admonitions of the hermit, and the sight of that innocent fruit of my love, full of life and health, which lay still in the arms of its dead mother, and which stretched out its little hands to me, as if to implore my protection, detained and disarmed me. Taking up the little creature, which was a beautiful girl, I delivered it, rolled up in my cloak, to the hermit, took in my arms my dead wife, and leaving that terrible spot, we went on to the hermitage. There, at the foot

of his humble altar, we placed the corpse, in order to fulfil in due time the sad duty of giving it burial, for now the care which occupied me most was to supply my tender child with the nourishment and assistance indispensable to infancy.

"Recollecting that the village of Mansilla was close by, where I had some property, I went there with my child, to place her with a peasant who was a dependant of my house. When I arrived at the cottage I found that he had just died, and had left his wife Anarda with a child a few months old. The natural compassion of the woman, or perhaps the gold which I gave her, induced her to take charge of the infancy of my babe. Having attained this object, and telling her I would return and inform myself concerning the precious deposite as soon as circumstances would permit, I set out and retraced my steps to the dwelling of the hermit, where, with the aid of this religious man, I disposed of the remains of my wife with all decency, committing her body to the earth, her soul to its Creator.

"This sad duty fulfilled, the hermit endeavoured to alleviate, with consoling words, the grief that he saw marked upon my countenance. When he was speaking to me, he turned his eyes often upon the statue of a woman which stood in the hermitage, and on looking at it the tears rose to his eyes. I soon perceived that the hermit suffered under some secret grief: the causes of

which, from delicacy, I forbore to ask him. But he, seeing that he had excited my curiosity, endeavoured to satisfy it, and pointing to the statue he said, 'That stone, carved by my own hands, represents a woman whom I once loved to the same extreme that you loved your wife.' And saying this, he proceeded to relate to me the events of his life. But as the relation of them," continued the Count Fernan Ramirez, "must be destitute of interest to you-"

"Nevertheless," said Bernardo, "give me, if you please, this narration, for you have excited in me a desire to hear it."

"I will do so," replied the count, "since you desire it. In nearly the following words, then, did the hermit give me the history of his life.”

D3

CHAPTER IX.

"My name is Rodrigo Arias de Mendoza, and the city of Zamora counted me, not long since, among the number of her most illustrious sons. Surrounded by friends, full of consideration, and living in the bosom of my country, where I enjoyed a rich estate, all that was wanting to my perfect enjoyment was to prove the joys of the married state, and even this happiness I was not long in realizing. Among the dames of Zamora there was one who exceeded all the rest in beauty, and who seemed as discreet as she was beautiful. I devoted myself to her and made myself acceptable, and at the foot of the altar received with her hand the reward of my passion. In these circumstances, I seemed to have arrived at the greatest felicity that is attainable by man in this life. But Heaven does not grant to mortals to be always happy, and prosperity as well as adversity has its appointed end.

"Hardly was I in possession of Elvira (for this was the name of my wife), when the trump of war sounded, and I was obliged to tear myself from her arms to hasten to the field of honour,

where my sovereign called me. A Moorish officer, who served the King of Toledo, breaking the league that existed between that monarch and Don Alfonso, had made an inroad upon the frontier of Galicia, and was scattering through the towns in that quarter devastation and death. Having collected all the forces I could muster, I marched with other captains to meet the enemy, whom we found in possession of a small town on the banks of the Orbigo. The siege of the place was begun with activity, but the Moors defended it with vigour, and the force we had not seeming sufficient to oblige them to surrender, we determined to send to the king to ask of him a reinforcement. This trust was confided to Gonzalo de Benavides, my intimate friend, who enjoyed all my confidence.

"Benavides was a youth of very handsome appearance, of a jovial and frank character, who in conversation expressed himself with such facility and grace that every one who heard him hung upon his lips. With some virtues he possessed many vices; but these he knew how to conceal with such art, or else showed them under so plausible an aspect, that they were either not discovered or very readily pardoned. In short, he was a consummate libertine, without any one suspecting that he was more than a gay and dissipated young man.

"The night before his departure for the court,