Heaven!" she exclaimed; "what have I done, that I should be punished in the most cruel way to me in the world? Alas! I had intended my son for my niece; and to my desperate annoyance, I perceive he has attached himself to a wretched shepherdess, who will, perhaps, excite him to rebel against my pleasure."
While she was thus distressing herself, and forming a thousand schemes in her fury to punish Constancia for being so beautiful, so charming; love was unremittingly making fresh progress in the hearts of the young couple. Constancia, convinced of the Prince's sincerity, could no longer conceal from him her rank or her affection. So tender an avowal, and such a proof of confidence, enraptured him to such an extent, that anywhere but in the Queen's garden he would have cast himself at her feet to thank her. It was not without difficulty he restrained himself even there. He ceased to struggle with his passion. He had loved the shepherdess Constancia: it is easy to imagine that he adored her when he was informed of her rank, and if he was easily persuaded of the truth of so extraordinary a thing (as it appears to us,) of a great princess wandering about the world, by turns a shepherdess and a gardener, it was simply because, in those days, such adventures were common enough; and that he discovered something in her air and manners that warranted to him the truth of her story. Constancio, moved by love and respect, swore eternal fidelity to the Princess, and she vowed no less to him. They agreed that their marriage should take place as soon as they could obtain the consent of the persons on whom they depended. The Queen observed their growing passion; her confidante, who sought as eagerly as herself to discover something which might gain her favour with her mistress, came to her one day with the information, that Constancia sent Ruson every morning to the Prince's apartment. That the little ram carried two baskets which she had filled with flowers, and that Mirtain was his conductor. The Queen at this news lost all patience; she saw Ruson pass; she ran and laid wait for him herself, and despite the prayers of Mirtain, she dragged the ram to her own chamber, tore the baskets and flowers to pieces, and examined them so narrowly that she discovered, in a large carnation that was not fully blown, a little scrap of paper which Constancia had inserted with much
