Ere Queen Isabella reached her own apartments her plan was formed.  Don Luis’s tale had confirmed her suspicions as to the double cause of Marie’s wretchedness; she had herself administered to her while in that dead faint—­herself bent over her, lest the first words of returning consciousness should betray aught which the sufferer might wish concealed; but her care had been needless:  no word passed those parched and ashy lips.  The frame, indeed, for some days was powerless, and she acceded eagerly to Isabella’s earnest proffer (for it was not command) to send for her attendants, and occupy a suite of rooms in the castle, close to her royal mistress, in preference to returning to her own home; from which, in its desolate grandeur, she shrunk almost in loathing.

For seven days after her loss she had not quitted her apartment, seen only by the Queen and her own woman; but after that interval, at Isabella’s gently expressed wish, she joined her, in her private hours, amongst her most favored attendants; called upon indeed for nothing save her presence!  And little did her pre-occupied mind imagine how tenderly she was watched, and with what kindly sympathy her unexpressed thoughts were read.

On the evening in question, Isabella was seated, as was her frequent custom, in a spacious chamber, surrounded by her female attendants, with whom she was familiarly conversing, making them friends as well as subjects, yet so uniting dignity with kindness, that her favor was far more valued and eagerly sought than had there been no superiority; yet, still it was more for her perfect womanhood than her rank that she was so reverenced, so loved.  At the farther end of the spacious chamber were several young girls, daughters of the nobles of Castile and Arragon, whom Isabella’s maternal care for her subjects had collected around her, that their education might be carried on under her own eye, and so create for the future nobles of her country, wives and mothers after her own exalted stamp.  They were always encouraged to converse freely and gayly amongst each other; for thus she learned their several characters, and guided them accordingly.  There was neither restraint nor heaviness in her presence; for by a word, a smile, she could prove her interest in their simple pleasures, her sympathy in their eager youth.

Apart from all, but nearest Isabella, silent and pale, shrouded in the sable robes of widowhood—­that painful garb which, in its voiceless eloquence of desolation, ever calls for tears, more especially when it shrouds the young; her beautiful hair, save two thick braids, concealed under the linen coif—­sat Marie, lovely indeed still, but looking like one

                  “Whose heart was born to break—­
  A face on which to gaze, made every feeling ache.”

An embroidery frame was before her, “but the flowers grew but slowly beneath her hand.  About an hour after Isabella had joined her attendants, a light signal was heard at the tapestried door of the apartment.  The Queen was then sitting in a posture of deep meditation; but she looked up, as a young girl answered the summons, and then turned towards her Sovereign.