’When any severity was to be exercised upon the unhappy lady, Laura was always shut out of her apartment.  Her lady had said something that she was to be chidden for.  Lady Sforza, who was not altogether so severe as her daughter, was not at home.  Laura listened in tears:  she heard Laurana in great wrath with Lady Clementina, and threaten her—­and her young lady break out to this effect—­What have I done to you, Laurana, to be so used?—­You are not the cousin Laurana you used to be!  You know I am not able to help myself:  why do you call me crazy, and frantic, Laurana? [Vile upbraider, Lucy!] If the Almighty has laid his hand upon me, should I not be pitied?—­

’It is all for your good!  It is all for your good, Clementina!  You could not always have spoken so sensibly, cousin.

’Cruel Laurana!  You loved me once!  I have no mother, as you have.  My mother was a good mother:  but she is gone!  Or I am gone, I know not which!

’She threatened her then with the strait waistcoat, a punishment which the unhappy lady was always greatly terrified at.  Laura heard her beg and pray; but, Laurana coming out, she was forced to retire.

’The poor young lady apprehending her cruel cousin’s return with the threatened waistcoat, and with the woman that used to be brought in when they were disposed to terrify her, went down and hid herself under a stair-case, where she was soon discovered by her clothes, which she had not been careful to draw in after her.’

O, Lucy! how I wept!  How insupportable to me, said Sir Charles, would have been my reflections, had my conscience told me, that I had been the wilful cause of the noble Clementina’s calamity!

After I had a little recovered, I read to myself the next paragraph, which related, ’that the cruel Laurana dragged the sweet sufferer by her gown, from her hiding-place, inveighing against her, threatening her:  she, all patient, resigned, her hands crossed on her bosom, praying for ercy, not by speech, but by her eyes, which, however, wept not:  and causing her to be carried up to her chamber, there punished her with the strait waistcoat, as she had threatened.

’Father Marescotti was greatly affected with Laura’s relation, as well as with what he had himself observed:  but on his return to Bologna, dreading to acquaint her mother, for her own sake, with the treatment her Clementina met with, he only said, he did not quite approve of it, and advised her not to oppose the young lady’s being brought home, if the bishop and the general came into it:  but he laid the whole matter before the bishop, who wrote to the general to join with him out of hand, to release their sister from her present bondage:  and the general meeting the bishop on a set day at Milan, for that purpose, the lady was accordingly released.

’A breach ensued upon it, with Lady Sforza and her daughter; who would have it, that Clementina was much better for their management.  They had by terror broke her spirit, and her passiveness was reckoned upon as an indication of amendment.