The Spaniards had scarcely got clear of the city before Cornelia had confided her whole history to the housekeeper, informing her that the infant belonged to herself and to the Duke of Ferrara, and making her acquainted with all that has been related, not concealing from her that the journey made by her masters was to Ferrara, or that they went accompanied by her brother, who was going to challenge the Duke Alfonso.

Hearing all this, the housekeeper, as though the devil had sent her to complicate the difficulties and defer the restoration of Cornelia, began to exclaim—­“Alas! lady of my soul! all these things have happened to you, and you remain carelessly there with your limbs stretched out, and doing nothing!  Either you have no soul at all, or you have one so poor and weak that you do not feel it!  And do you really suppose that your brother has gone to Ferrara?  Believe nothing of the kind, but rather be sure that he has carried off my masters, and wiled them from the house, that he may return and take your life, for he can now do it as one would drink a cup of water.  Consider only under what kind of guard and protection we are left—­that of three pages, who have enough to do with their own pranks, and are little likely to put their hands to any thing good.  I, for my part, shall certainly not have courage to await what must follow, and the destruction that cannot but come upon this house.  The Signor Lorenzo, an Italian, to put his trust in Spaniards, and ask help and favour from them!  By the light of my eyes.  I will believe none of that!” So saying, she made a fig[3] at herself.  “But if you, my daughter, will take good advice, I will give you such as shall truly enlighten your way.”

[3] A gesture of contempt or playfulness, as the case may be, and which consists in a certain twist of the fingers and thumb.

Cornelia was thrown into a pitiable state of alarm and confusion by these declarations of file housekeeper, who spoke with so much heat, and gave so many evidences of terror, that all she said appeared to be the very truth.  The lady pictured to herself Don Antonio and Don Juan as perhaps already dead; she fancied her brother even then coming in at the door, and felt herself already pierced by the blows of his poniard.  She therefore replied, “What advice do you then give me, good friend, that may prevent the catastrophe which threatens us?”

“I will give you counsel so good,” rejoined the housekeeper, “that better could not be.  I, Signora, was formerly in the service of a priest, who has his abode in a village not more than two miles from Ferrara.  He is a good and holy man, who will do whatever I require from him, since he is under more obligations to me than merely those of a master to a faithful servant.  Let us go to him.  I will seek some one who shall conduct us thither instantly; and the woman who comes to nurse the infant is a poor creature, who will go with us to the end of the world.  And, now make ready, Signora; for