tholics, that she is already most probably one of
us, and only avowed her descent from some mysterious cause--by St.
Francis, she shall be saved!"

"But how?" inquired Isabella anxiously. "Wouldst thou deny her faith
to Father Francis, and persuade him she has spoken falsely?"

The King shook his head. "That will never do, Isabel. I have had the
holy man closeted with me already, insisting on the sanity of her
words, and urging me to resign the unbeliever at once to the tender
mercy of the church. All must depend on thee."

"On me?" repeated Isabella, in a tone of surprised yet anxious
inquiry.

"On thee, love. Thy perfect humility is ignorant of the fact--yet it
is nevertheless perfectly true--that thou art reverenced, well nigh
canonized, by the holy church; and thy words will have weight when
mine would be light as air. Refuse the holy fathers all access to her;
say she is unfitted to encounter them; that she is ill; nay, mad, if
thou wilt. Bring forward the state in which she was borne from the
hall; her very laugh (by St. Francis, it rings in my ear still) to
confirm it, and they will believe thee. The present excitement will
gradually subside, and her very existence be forgotten. Let none but
thy steadiest, most pious matrons have access to her; forbid thy young
maidens to approach or hold converse with her; and her being under
thy protection can do harm to none. Let her be prisoner in her own
apartments, an thou wilt; she deserves punishment for the deception
practised towards thee. Treat her as thou deemest best, only give her
not up to the mercy of the church!"

"Talk not of it," replied the Queen earnestly. "Unbeliever though
she be, offspring of a race which every true Catholic must hold in
abhorrence, she is yet a _woman_, Ferdinand, and, as such, demands and
shall receive the protection of her Queen. Yet, would there were some
means of saving her from the eternal perdition to which, as a Jewess,
she is destined; some method, without increase of suffering, to allure
her, as a penitent and believing child, to the bosom of our holy
mother church."

"And to do this, who so fitted as thyself, dearest Isabel?" answered
the King with earnest affection. "Thou hast able assistants in some
of thy older matrons, and may after a while call in the aid of Father
Denis, whose kindly nature is better fitted for gentle conversion
than either Francis, or thy still sterner chaplain, Torquemada. Thy
kindness has gained