“The padrona had not been favorably disposed to him at first, but this mood soon changed, and at New Year’s he too was admitted to small evening receptions of intimate friends.  He came whenever we invited him, but had no word, no look, scarcely a greeting for our young lady.  Only when it pleased the signorina to sing, he went near her and sharply criticised anything in her execution that chanced to displease him.  He often sang himself too, and then usually chose the same songs as Fraulein Anna, as if to surpass her by his superior skill.

“So things went on till the time of the carnival.  On Shrove-Tuesday the padrona gave a large entertainment, and when I led the servants and stood behind the signorina and Don Luis, to whom her excellenza had long been in the habit of assigning the seat beside her niece, I noticed that their hands met under the table and rested in each other’s clasp a long time.  My heart was so full of anxiety, that it was very hard for me to keep the attention so necessary on that evening—­and when the next morning, the padrona summoned me to settle the accounts, I thought it my duty to modestly remark that Don Luis d’Avila’s wooing did not seem disagreeable to the young lady in spite of her betrothal.  She let me speak, but when I ventured to repeat what people said of the Spaniard, angrily started up and showed me to the door.  A faithful servant often hears and sees more than his employers suspect, and I had the confidence of the padrona’s foster-sister, who is now dead; but at that time Susanna knew everything that concerned her mistress.

“There was a bad prospect for the expectant bridegroom in France, for whenever the padrona spoke of him, it was with a laugh we knew, and which boded no good; but she still wrote frequently to the marquis and his mother, and many a letter from Rochebrun reached our house.  To be sure, her excellenza also gave Don Luis more than one secret audience.

“During Lent a messenger from Fraulein Van Hoogstraten’s father arrived with the news, that at Easter he, himself, would come to Brussels from Haarlem, and the marquis from Castle Rochebrun, and on Maundy Thursday I received orders to dress the private chapel with flowers, engage posthorses, and do several other things.  On Good Friday, the day of our Lord’s crucifixion—­I wish I were telling lies—­early in the morning of Good Friday the signorina was dressed in all her bridal finery.  Don Luis appeared clad in black, proud and gloomy as usual, and by candle-light, before sunrise on a cold, damp morning—­it seems to me as if it were only yesterday—­the Castilian was married to our young mistress.  The padrona, a Spanish officer and I were the witnesses.  At seven o’clock the carriage drove up, and after it was packed Don Luis handed me a little box to put in the vehicle.  It was heavy and I knew it well; the padrona was in the habit of keeping her gold coin in it.  At Easter the whole city learned that Don Luis d’Avila had eloped with the beautiful Anna Van Hoogstraten, after killing her betrothed bridegroom in a duel on Maundy-Thursday at Hals on his way to Brussels—­scarcely twenty-four hours before the wedding.