"Mother," said Gabriel, "I have something to say to thee." They were in the half-orange room, and she had looked in to give her good-night kiss to the lonely student, but his words arrested her at the door. She sat down and gazed lovingly at her handsome eldest-born, in whom her dead husband lived as in his prime. "'Twill be of Isabella," she thought, with a stir in her breast, rejoiced to think that the brooding eyes of the scholar had opened at last to the beauty and goodness of the highborn heiress who loved him.
"Mother, I have made a great resolution, and 'tis time to tell thee."
"My blessed Gabriel!"
"Nay, I fear thou wilt hate me."
"Hate thee!"
"Because I must leave thee."
"'Tis the natural lot of mothers to be left, my Gabriel."
"Ah, but this is most unnatural. Oh, my God! why am I thus tried?"
"What meanest thou? What has happened?" The old woman had risen.