sed me."[10]

This simple, warm-hearted letter, which breathes all the frankness and
affection of Beatrice's nature, is written, like most of her early
letters, in her own hand. The words are often badly spelt, and her
handwriting is larger and less formed than that of Isabella, which it
otherwise resembles. But owing to the multiplicity of interests and
occupations that claimed her time after the first years of her married
life, the young duchess generally employed a secretary, and has left
comparatively few letters. Lodovico himself addressed several letters to
his sister-in-law, to whom he was sincerely attached, and in order to
facilitate the intercourse between the two sisters, and as he said, to
leave Isabella no excuse for not answering his communications, he sent a
courier regularly every week to Mantua, with orders to await the
Marchesana's pleasure and bring back her letters.

"Loving you cordially as I do," he writes, a fortnight after her
departure, "and, knowing that I have in you a very dear sister, nothing
can give me greater pleasure than letters from your hand. I thank your
Highness most sincerely for all that you tell me, and most of all for
your warm expressions of affection and for saying how sorry you were to
leave us, and how not even the splendid _fetes_ in Ferrara could console
you for being deprived of our presence. All I beg of you is to write
often, and I will see that your letters are brought here."

Besides her sister and brother-in-law and Madonna Polisenna, Isabella
had another correspondent at the court of Milan, in the person of Messer
Galeazzo di Sanseverino, with whom she had formed a warm friendship at
Pavia, and who had promised to give her frequent news of her sister,
while at the same time he still carried on the battle over Roland and
Rinaldo which had been started in the park of the Castello at Pavia. He
too, writing on the 11th of February, was able to assure the Marchesana
that all was going well, and that the relations between her sister and
Signor Lodovico left nothing to be desired.

"My Duchess," as he always calls the mistress to whose service he had
pledged his sword and life, "perseveres in showing Signor Lodovico an
affection which is truly beyond all praise, and, to put it briefly, I am
satisfied that there is such real attachment between them, that I do not
believe two persons could love each other better."

The presence of this young and joyous princess gave a to