the Count's armorial bearings. Drawing rudely aside the hangings, she
beheld the sleeping figure of a little boy, who, even in his infantine
features, recalled the handsome traits of her husband's face. The child
started and awoke with the noise, and looking wildly up, cried out,
"Papa;" and then suddenly changing his utterance, said, "Mamma." Almost
immediately, however, discovering his error, he searched with anxious
eyes around the chamber for those he was wont to see beside him.

"Who are you?" said the Countess, in a voice that trembled with the
most terrible conflict of terror and jealousy, excited to the verge of
madness. "Who are you?"

"Il Conte Juliano," said the child, haughtily; and shewing at the same
time a little medallion of gold embroidered on his coat, and displaying
the family arms of the Julianos.

"Come with me, then, and, see your father's castle," said the Countess;
and she lifted him from the bed, and led him down the steps of the steep
stairs into, her husband's chamber.

It was the custom of the period, that the lady, no matter how exalted
her rank, should with her own hands arrange the linen which composed her
husband's toilet, and this service was never permitted to be discharged
by any less exalted member of the household. When the Count returned,
toward night-fall, he hastened to his room--an invitation, or command,
to dine at the Court that day compelling him to dress with all speed. He
asked for the Countess as he passed up the stairs, but paid no attention
to the reply, for as he entered his chamber he found she had already
performed the accustomed office, and that the silver basket, with
its snow-white contents, lay ready to his hand. With eager haste he
proceeded to dress, and took up the embroidered shirt before him. When,
horror of horrors! there lay beneath it the head of his child, severed
from the body, still warm and bleeding--the dark eyes glaring as if with
but half-extinguished life, the lips parted as if yet breathing! One cry
of shrill and shrieking madness was heard through every vaulted chamber
of that vast castle; the echoes were still ringing with it as the
maddened father tore wildly from chamber to chamber in search of the
murderess. She had quitted the castle on horseback two hours before.
Mounting his swiftest horse he followed her from castle to castle; the
dreadful chase continued through the night and the next day; a few
hours of terrible slumber refreshed him