and amusement. It is indeed a rare joy to see them
together and to realize what cordial love and good-will he bears her.
God grant it may last long! And I felt that I must write this good news
to your Highness, knowing that it would give you especial satisfaction.
I will only add that the air here seems to suit her particularly well,
and that she is certainly very much improved and stronger in appearance,
and seems every day to grow more beautiful. I beg of your Highness to
commend me to Madonna Beatrice and Collona.

"Your Highness's servant,
POLISSENA D'ESTE.

From Milan, 12th of February, 1491."

And Beatrice herself wrote to Isabella in answer to her letter from her
sister, describing the festivities at Ferrara, where her presence had
been sadly missed by her affectionate relatives.

"I leave you to imagine how much content and delight your letter of the
17th has given me. For in it you give me so full and vivid a description
of the successful _fetes_ in honour of the wedding of Madonna Anna, our
brother's wife and dearest sister, that I seem to have been present
there myself. And since you know well how much I love and respect you, I
am sure you will understand how glad I was to hear from you. Your
letter, indeed, gave me greater pleasure than any which I have received
since you left here, and I am quite sure that all of these pageants and
spectacles were distinguished by the utmost beauty and gallantry, as you
say, since they were all planned and arranged by our dear father, who
orders these things with consummate wisdom and perfection. I can well
believe that my absence has been a real grief to you, and that these
_fetes_ have given you but little pleasure, since I was not there. For
my own part, I cannot deny that, now I am without your company, I feel
not only that I am deprived of a very dear sister, but that I have lost
half of myself. And if it were not for the new and continual amusements
which my illustrious husband provides every day for my pleasure, I
should have been inconsolable until I could be once more with you. But
since our hearts and thoughts are still one, and we are able to exchange
letters constantly, I beg you to take comfort as I do, and rest content
in feeling that, now these ceremonies are all over, we can at least speak
to each other by means of letters, written with our own hands, as you
have promi