directing what was going on. Her curiosity and restlessness increased
every moment. She listened so intently that her head began to ache
again, but could hear only separate words and those very indistinctly.
Had the city been surrendered to the Spaniards, had King Philip's
soldiers found quarters in the burgomaster's house? Her blood boiled
indignantly, when she thought of the Castilians' triumph and the
humiliation of her native land, but soon her former joyous excitement
again filled her mind, as she beheld in imagination art re-enter the bare
walls of the Leyden churches, now robbed of all their ornaments, chanting
processions move through the streets, and priests in rich robes
celebrating mass in the newly-decorated tabernacles, amid beautiful
music, the odor of incense, and the ringing of bells. She expected to
receive from the Spaniards a place where she could pray and free her soul
by confession. Amid her former surroundings nothing had afforded her any
support, except her religion. A worthy priest, who was also her
instructor, had zealously striven to prove to her, that the new religion
threatened to destroy the mystical consecration of life, the yearning for
the beautiful, every ideal emotion of the human soul, and with them art
also; so Henrica preferred to see her native land Spanish and Catholic,
rather than free from the foreigners whom she hated and Calvinistical.

The court-yard gradually became less noisy, but when the first rays of
morning light streamed into her windows, the bustle again commenced and
grew louder. Heavy soles tramped upon the pavement, and amid the voices
that now mingled with those she had formerly heard, she fancied she
distinguished Maria's and Barbara's. Yes, she was not mistaken. That
cry of terror must proceed from her friend's mouth, and was followed by
exclamations of grief from bearded lips and loud sobs.

Evil tidings must have reached her host's house, and the woman weeping so