“I shall never forget how Junker Van Hoogstraten raged.  The padrona refused to see him and pretended to be ill, but she was as well as only she could be during these last few years.”

“And do you know how to interpret your mistress’s mysterious conduct?” asked Wilhelm.

“Yes sir; her reasons are perfectly evident.  But I must hasten, it is growing late; besides I cannot tell you minute particulars, for I was myself a child when the event happened, though Susanna has told me many things that would probably be worth relating.  Her excellenza’s mother was a Chevreaux, and my mistress spent the best years of her life with her mother’s sister, who during the winter lived in Paris.  It was in the reign of the late King Francis, and you doubtless know that this great Prince was a very gallant gentleman, who was said to have broken as many hearts as lances.  My padrona, who in those days was very beautiful, belonged to the ladies of his court, and King Francis especially distinguished her.  But the young lady knew how to guard her honor, for she had early found in the gallant Marquis d’Avennes a knight to whom she was loyally devoted, and for whom she had wept bitterly many a night.  Like master, like servant, and though the marquis had worn the young lady’s color for years and rendered her every service of an obedient knight, his eyes and heart often wandered to the right and left.  Yet he always returned to his liege-lady, and when the sixth year came, the Chevreaux’s urged the marquis to put an end to his trifling and think of marriage.  My mistress began to make her preparations, and Susanna was a witness of her consultation with the marquis about whether she would keep or sell the Holland estates and castles.  But the wedding did not take place, for the marquis was obliged to go to Italy with the army and her excellenza lived in perpetual anxiety about him; at that time the French fared ill in my country, and he often left her whole months without news.  At last he returned and found in the Chevreaux’s house his betrothed wife’s little cousin, who had grown up into a charming young lady.

“You can imagine the rest.  The rose-bud Hortense now pleased the marquis far better than the Holland flower of five and twenty.  The Chevreaux’s were aristocratic but deeply in debt, and the suitor, while fighting in Italy, had inherited the whole of his uncle’s great estate, so they did not suffer him to sue in vain.  My mistress returned to Holland.  Her father challenged the marquis, but no blood was spilled in the duel, and Monsieur d’Avennes led a happy wedded life with Hortense de Chevreaux.  Her son was the signorina’s hapless lover.  Do you understand, Herr Wilhelm?  She had nursed and fostered the old grudge for half a life time; for its sake she had sacrificed her own kinswoman to Don Luis, but in return she repaid by the death of the only son of a hated mother, the sorrow she had suffered for years on her account.”