y before her, as men do to their saints! Oh
Nature! Oh Heaven! you would not so desert me, that my prayer should be
fruitless."

Yes! if she were there alone, no other mortal near! This thought so
wrought within him, took so strong possession of his mind, that it led him
to a thousand projects for its realisation. What if he carried her off by
force from her uncle's residence, and brought her there? Surely the
humility, the passionate devotion with which he would entreat her, would
atone for the rash and violent means he had used to bring her within the
scope of his supplications; and the utter submission, and profound respect
of his manner, would immediately convince her that he had no design upon
her freedom of will, and that she might confide with entire safety to his
honour. And as to the feasibility of the project, popular and beloved as
he was in the university, there were numbers of students quite ready to
engage in any scheme he should propose, however hazardous it might be. It
would be very easy for him to organise a little band of the most faithful
and the boldest of his adherents, who, with a due mixture of stratagem and
force, would accomplish this new and harmless species of abduction.

The uncle of Constantia held, as we have intimated, a high judicial post,
and was sometimes absent from Bologna, administering justice amongst the
several dependencies of the republic. On one of these occasions Constantia
was sitting with a female friend, who had been invited to stay with her
during his absence from home. The room they sat in was one of those fine
old Gothic chambers, which the pencil of Haghe delights to reproduce and
restore for us; and to his pencil we willingly leave the description of
it. Constantia was seated on one of those tall arm-chairs, with straight
high back, which beauty then made graceful to the eye, and leaned her
little chin upon her doubled hand, as she listened to her friend, Leonora,
who was reading her a lecture upon the very theme which makes the burden
of our story, her coldness to Giacomo.

"What would you _have_? what do you _expect_?" was the triumphant close of
her harangue.

"What would I have?" replied Constantia. "Myself! I would possess myself
in peace and stillness--What do I expect? I do not live on expectation. I
love my present life--its calm, its contentment, its freedom. Why would
you help to rob me of these?"

"Freedom! So, then, you fear the tyrant in the husband. B