ors of the procession there were only too many whose
mourning robes were worn not for the dead monarch, but their own nearest
relatives, whom his pitiless edicts had given to the executioner as
readers of the Bible or heterodox.

These displays, so pleasing to the people of her time and her new home,
were by no means great or magnificent enough for Barbara. Even the most
superb show seemed to her too trivial for this dead man.

She was never absent from any mass for the repose of his soul, and she
not only took part outwardly in the sacred ceremony, but followed it
with fervent devotion. As a transfigured spirit, he would perceive how
she had once hated him; but he should also see how tenderly she still
loved him.

Now that he was dead, it would be proved in what way he had remembered
the son whom, in his solitude, he had learned to love, what life path
John had been assigned by his father.

But longingly as Barbara thought of Spain and of her boy, often as
she went to the Dubois house and to the regent's home to obtain news,
nothing could be heard of her child.

Many provisions of the imperial will were known, but there was no
mention of her son. Yet Charles could not have forgotten him, and Adrian
protested that it would soon appear that he had not omitted him in his
last will, and this was done in a manner which indicated that he knew
more than he would or could confess.

All this increased Barbara's impatience to the highest degree, and
induced her to watch and question with twofold zeal. On no account would
she have left the capital during this period of decision, and, though
her husband earnestly entreated her to go to the springs, whose waters
had proved so beneficial, she remained in Brussels.

In August she saw King Philip set out for Spain, and Margaret of Parma,
her son's sister, assume the government of the Netherlands as regent.

On various occasions she succeeded in obtaining a near view of the
stately-lady, with her clever; kindly and, spite of the famous down
on her upper lip, by no means unlovely features, and her attractive
appearance gave Barbara courage to request an audience, in order to
learn from her something about her child. But the effort was vain, for
the duchess had had no news of the existence of a second son of her
father; and this time it was Granvelle who prevented the regent from
receiving the woman who would probably have spoken to her of the boy
concerning whose fate King Phil