satisfaction. Soon, however, his lofty brow clouded again, and his lower
lip protruded. Some idea which excited his indignation must have entered
his mind. He had just been thinking with the warmest joy of the gift of
Fate of which the physician had told him, but now the reasons which
forbade his offering it a sincere welcome crowded upon the thinker.

If Heaven bestowed a son upon him, would not only the Church, but also
the law, which he knew so well, refuse to recognise his rights? A child
whose mother had offended him, whose grandfather was a ridiculous,
impoverished old soldier, whose cousins----

Yet for what did he possess the highest power on earth if he would not
use it to place his own child, in spite of every obstacle, at the height
of earthly grandeur?

What need he care for the opinion of the world? And yet, yet----

Then there was a great bustle below. The loud tramping of horses' hoofs
was heard. A troop of Lombardy cavalry in full armour appeared on the
Haidplatz--fresh re-enforcements for the war just commencing. The erect
figure of the Duke of Alba, a man of middle height, followed by several
colonels, trotted toward it. The standard-bearer of the Lombards lowered
the banner with the picture of the Madonna before the duke, and the
Emperor involuntarily glanced back into the room at the lovely Madonna
and Child by the master hand of Giovanni Bellini which his royal sister
had hung above his writing table.

How grave and lovely, yet how full of majesty, the Christ-child looked,
how touching a grace surrounded the band of angels playing on violins
above the purest of mothers!