hich it formed a part, had since
been constituted a portion of the university. All her attendants except
one left the room. We need not say that it was Giacomo who handed her from
her temporary imprisonment.

To judge from their bearing and attitude, you would have said that it was
Giacomo who was the captive, bending before the mercy of Constantia. She
stood there, upright, calm, inflexible. He was, indeed, at her mercy. He
felt that his life depended on this present moment, and on the few words
that should fall from her lips. He led her to the upper end of the room
where his imagination had so often placed her. He knelt--he sued.

Beginning with abrupt protests and exclamations, his impassioned pleading
gradually grew more continuous, but not less vehement, till it flowed in
the full torrent of a lover's eloquence. On all this turbulent pathos
Constantia looked calmly down, more in sorrow than in anger. From the
moment she understood in whose power she was, she had ceased (so much
justice she had at least done to the character of her lover) to have any
alarm whatever on her own account; but she was filled with regret,
disquietude, and concern for the fatal consequences which might ensue to
himself from the unwarrantable step he had taken. "Restore me to my
uncle's before he shall hear of this," were the only words she vouchsafed
in return to all his passionate appeal.

But the pleading of the desperate lover was not, as may well be supposed,
allowed to proceed without interruption. Leonora, a young girl of spirit
and animation, immediately sent forth the servants of the household to
rouse up the friends of the family, and to spread every where the report
of the strange outrage which had been committed upon one of the most
respected families of Bologna. A fleet messenger was especially despatched
to the uncle of Constantia, distant only a few miles from the town, to
recall him to a scene where his presence was so much required. There was a
perpetual standing feud between the citizens of Bologna and the students
of the university, which had often disturbed the tranquillity of the city;
it was therefore with extreme alacrity and zeal that the townsmen rushed
in crowds into the streets, armed with the best weapons they could
procure, to rescue the niece of their venerable judge, and to punish the
gross outrage which they conceived had been perpetrated.

When, however, the multitude came in front of the large mansion or