ve you, it shall
be on the virtuous account; it shall be for the princess; I assure you
it shall be for no other woman." "That's enough, my lord," said I;
"there I ought to submit; and while I am assured it shall be for no
other mistress, I promise your Highness I will not repine; or that, if I
do, it shall be a silent grief; it shall not interrupt your felicity."

All this while I said I knew not what, and said what I was no more able
to do than he was able to leave me; which, at that time, he owned he
could not do--no, not for the princess herself.

But another turn of affairs determined this matter, for the princess was
taken very ill, and, in the opinion of all her physicians, very
dangerously so. In her sickness she desired to speak with her lord, and
to take her leave of him. At this grievous parting she said so many
passionate, kind things to him, lamented that she had left him no
children (she had had three, but they were dead); hinted to him that it
was one of the chief things which gave her satisfaction in death, as to
this world, that she should leave him room to have heirs to his family,
by some princess that should supply her place; with all humility, but
with a Christian earnestness, recommended to him to do justice to such
princess, whoever it should be, from whom, to be sure, he would expect
justice; that is to say, to keep to her singly, according to the
solemnest part of the marriage covenant; humbly asked his Highness's
pardon if she had any way offended him; and appealing to Heaven, before
whose tribunal she was to appear, that she had never violated her honour
or her duty to him, and praying to Jesus and the blessed Virgin for his
Highness; and thus, with the most moving and most passionate expressions
of her affection to him, took her last leave of him, and died the next
day.

This discourse, from a princess so valuable in herself and so dear to
him, and the loss of her following so immediately after, made such deep
impressions on him that he looked back with detestation upon the former
part of his life, grew melancholy and reserved, changed his society and
much of the general conduct of his life, resolved on a life regulated
most strictly by the rules of virtue and piety, and, in a word, was
quite another man.

The first part of his reformation was a storm upon me; for, about ten
days after the princess's funeral, he sent a message to me by his
gentleman, intimating, though in very civil terms