But while the nation shouted for joy, a cloud was gathering over the imperial palace, and its black shadow darkened the faces of the once happy family.
There wanted now but a few months to complete the third year of the archduke's marriage, and the young princesses seized every opportunity to make schemes of pleasure for the joyous anniversary. Isabella viewed these projects with a mournful smile. Her countenance became sadder and more serious, except when in the presence of her husband. There she assumed an appearance of gayety: laughing, jesting, and drawing from her violin its sweetest sounds. But, with her attendants, or in the company of the other members of the imperial family, she was melancholy, and made her preparations for death, which she foretold would overtake her very soon.
"You believe this terrible presentiment, my daughter?" said the empress to her one day. "Will you indeed forsake us who love you so dearly?"
"It is not that I will, but that I MUST go," replied she. "It is God who calls me, and I must obey."
"But why do you think that God has called you?"
Isabella was silent for a moment, then she raised her eyes with a strange, unspeakable look to the face of the empress. "A dream has announced it to me," said she, "a dream in which I place implicit faith."
"A dream?" said the pious empress to herself. "It is true that God sometimes speaks to men in dreams; sometimes reveals to us in sleep secrets which He denies to our waking, earthly eyes. What was your dream, love?"
"What I saw?" whispered she, almost inaudibly. "There are visions which no words can describe. They do not pass as pictures before the eye, but with unquenchable fire they brand themselves upon the heart. What I saw? I saw a beloved and dying face, a breathing corpse. I lay overwhelmed with grief near the outstretched form of my—my—mother. Oh, believe me, the prayer of despair has power over death itself, and the cry of a broken heart calls back the parting soul. I wept, I implored, I prayed, until the dim eyes opened, the icy lips moved and the stiffening corpse arose and looked at me, at me who knelt in wild anguish by its side."
"Horrible! "cried the empress. "And this awful dream did not awake you?"
"No, I did not awake, and even now it seems to me that all these things were real. I saw the corpse erect, and I heard the words which its hollow and unearthly voice spoke to me: `We shall meet again in three—'"