persuading
him anew that this was his lost bride. Then again he often fancied he
was lying enchained by a heavy dream, or had been seized by a trance
of madness which was transforming every object around him, so that he
was perhaps still in Padua, or at his own home, and saw nothing but
phantasmal forms, and could not recognize or understand any of the
friends who might be round about consoling him or mourning over him.

The storm had raved itself out, and the stars were shining in the
pacified dark sky. The old woman ate greedily, and drank still more
plenteously of the sweet wine.

"Now at length, young Antonio," she began after some time, "tell us,
prithee, what brought you to Padua, and what has driven you hither?"

Antonio started as from sleep. "You may well," he replied, "demand
some account of your guest, since, beside that reason, you knew my
father, and it may be my mother too."

"To be sure I knew her," said the old woman sniggering; "nobody so
well as I. Yes, yes, she died just six months before your father
celebrated his second marriage with the Marchesa Manfredi."

"So you know that too?"

"Why, it seems to me," she continued, "as though I could see the
dainty trim doll at this very moment before me. Well, is your
beautiful stepmother still living? When they drove me out of the
country she was just in her prime full bloom."

"I cannot again go through," said Antonio with a sigh, "what I
suffered from that alien mother. She held my father as under
enchantment; and he was readier to wrong all his old friends, readier
to wrong his own son, than in anywise to offend her. At last however
their behaviour to each other altered; but my heart almost broke at
the sight of their hatred, while before it had only bled at the
insults I had to endure."

"So there was plenty of bitter malice," askt the old hag with a
nauseous grin, "throughout the whole family?"

Antonio eyed her with a sharp look, and said confusedly: "I know not
how I have come to be talking here about my own and my parents
misery."

The old woman swallowed a bumper of red wine, which stood like blood
in the glass. Then with a loud laugh she said: "Faith, I know no such
glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect
rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days
were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and
snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and sco