[52]
would not be so reserved to me: She will let me talk to her of young men; and when a handsome cavalier has come to the castle, she has owned to me that she wished your brother Conrad resembled him."
Bianca, said the Princess, I do not allow you to mention my friend disrespectfully. Isabella is of a chearful disposition, but her soul is pure as virtue itself. She knows your idle babling humour, and perhaps has now and then encouraged it, to divert melancholy, and enliven the solitude in which my father keeps us"—Blessed Mary! said Bianca, starting, there it is again!—dear Madam, Do you hear nothing?—this castle is certainly haunted!—peace! said Matilda, and listen! I did think I heard a voice—but it must be fancy: your terrors, I suppose, have infected me. Indeed! indeed! Madam, said Bianca, half-weeping with agony, I am sure I heard a voice. Does any body lie in the chamber beneath? said the Princess. Nobody has dared to lie there, answered Bianca, since the great astrologer that was yourbrother's
