Also marriage portions to sundry young women, and legacies to her physicians.
Also legacies to four hospitals.
This remarkable entry was made——
"I leave Cynthia, my slave, to the said Vespasiano my heir, whom I direct to take her to his state of Lombardy; and, when he has come to the truth of what I wished to know from her, to give her in marriage in that province, with two hundred ducats currency as dowry, and to make her free and set her at liberty."
And, on re-consideration, towards the close of the will,—after leaving a legacy to her undutiful daughter-in-law, and to her sister, a nun,——
"If ever any person be found who may have given me offence in any manner whatsoever, I freely pardon them, and beg my heir not to bear any resentment. I also order and bind my said heir that he use no constraint or severity towards the said Cynthia;—nor am I careful that he should learn from her what I said before that I wished to know; but that he shall make her free and set her at liberty, and give her in marriage in the province of Lombardy, as I before said."
If looks could kill, would not the stubborn, impenetrable Cynthia have been annihilated by the glances that were given her by the rest of the Duchess's women, when this testamentary disposition transpired? Had they the concentrated power of burning-glasses, she would have borne them just as stoutly. All her life she had been sinning and inly repenting; but, to draw from her one word she did not choose to speak—no! that they should not! She, an Abencerrage, to be treated like a slave? She had no feelings in common with her captors: she hated their race, and despised their creed. She only made an exception in favour of the Duchess; but the Duchess did not understand her: nobody understood her. Oh! how hackneyed a complaint it is, that we are not understood!
So, although Cynthia had shed sincere tears for her mistress, she felt a gloomy glory, when she heard the first clause relating to herself, in thinking that the more the young Duke insisted on her telling, the more she would never mind. But when she found her gentle mistress had retracted that command, and left her mentally and bodily at liberty—she stole away to a solitary place, and there shed big tears, beating her breast, and saying,
"O Leila, Leila! You loved me!—and indeed I loved you!"
