Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.
“O who would wish to be a King?” said the gallant King James of Scotland, when the fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain herd were shouting the name of Douglas; and we ask, Who would wish to be a Prime Minister? No one, surely, who has any regard for his own tranquillity or happiness; no one who cannot scorn the base revilings of the thankless crowd, in whose service he is exerting all the energies of a noble intellect, and wasting his health; no one who is not prepared to encounter the treachery of friends, and the hatred of enemies; who has not a heart of adamant and nerves of steel; unless he be a true patriot, and then the consciousness of rectitude and nobility of purpose will support him through all.
A fair girl was leaning over a balcony in the residence of the Prime Minister of Portugal, inhaling the sweet odours which rose from the garden beneath. Her light hair, not yet brought under the slavish subjection of fashion, fell in long ringlets over her fair neck, while her laughing blue eye, and lips formed to smile, betokened her German extraction, for she was the daughter of Sebastiaö Jozé de Carvalho and the Countess Daun; though neither in her gentle disposition, or her small and beautifully rounded figure, did she partake of her father’s qualities. She started, for a sigh was breathed near her, and she beheld a handsome youth by her side, gazing at her with a look of enraptured devotion. A blush mantled on her cheeks as she asked, “What brings you here, Senhor Alfonzo? I thought you were with my father at the palace.”
“I am about to go thither, Donna Agnes,” answered the youth, “but I sought first to see you.”
“Pardon me, senhor, I must not delay you,” said the young lady.
“Lady, in mercy save me from destruction!” exclaimed the youth, in a tone which thrilled to her heart.
“What mean you, Senhor Alfonzo? In what way can I aid you?” said the Minister’s daughter.
“In your hands is my fate, either to leave me a wretch unworthy of existence, or to raise me from despair, and grant me bliss incomparable.”
“I dare not, I must not, understand the meaning of your strange expressions,” said Donna Agnes, her hand, which rested on the balustrade, slightly trembling. “Let me entreat you, senhor, to leave me. I would not be the unhappy cause of your ruin.”