'Twas for her children-were they dead and To-morrow's sun arose. Griselda Wtnt, gone,

(they? She swept the palace halls, garnished the Torn by fierce wolves, or men as fierce as floor, Or did they live? And she would cross her The couches, each familiar guest-chamber breast,

Dressed in its gayest colours, and came forth And cry, "O Holy Mother of the Christ, To greet the Countess as she stepped from Grant me the gift of patience, to control

off

(there, The throbbings of a wife's, a mother's heart. Her palfrey at the gate. The guests are God's will and thine be done, and his to And all is expectation, and the feast whom

Will soon begin. I still am true, a wife and yet ro wife.'

“And now, what thinkest thou,

Griselda, of my bride?" the Countexclaimed. Ten years, ten weary years have rolled on; "Sooth she is fair, yes, passing fair, and fit Griselda sits within her father's cot,

To deck these halls, as none afore her was. And save unto the village chapel, or And, if she be as good as she is fair, The convent gate, ne'er hath she wandered You may reign happy in Saluzzo's halls, forth,

And hand your heritage to a long line But ever-patient and without complaint, Of noble sons, sprung from your princely Bearing the silent burden of her woe,

loins. Hath lived an angel's life. Giannuculo But oh! if I may breathe one prayer, I pray Blessed day by day his child, so pure, so fair, Thou mayst not rack this youthful maiden's So woe-worn, yet so meek amid her woes; heart And cried, “ Heaven pardon him who did As thou hast racked another's. Yet withal thee wrong!"

Thy will, my lord, and God's own will be

done. One summer morn, twelve years the very Young is thy bride, and nurtured tenderly; day

I was a tougher sapling, and I knew Since that Griselda in her cottage home | To bend me to the storm, as one who Had first beheld her lord--in hottest haste

learnt

(schooled A horseman reins his steed before the door, Life's fitful moods, and as a child was Where sits Giannuculo in pensive mood. To hardships, ay, from earliest infancy. “ The Count, my lord and master and thine Yet stay–what mean this locket, and this own,

cross? Hath sent to call thy daughter, fair Griselde, It is the same which twelve long years ago Upon the pain of fealty, to appear

I bound about that neck--the neck of her, This day within his palace gates. Once more My first-born child! O God and saints of Saluzzo joys to learn its lord, the Count,

heaven! Our gracious Gualtiero, hath prepared Do I yet see my own, my long-lost child? His halls to welcome a new bride, as fair And by her side, so like their father's face, As was Griselda, and of nobler blood. Her brother? or does sight bemock my To-morrow-for the Court of Rome mean

heart, while

My mother's l cart, or is it all a dream? Hath granted dispensation for the deed— God's will ana Gualtiero's will be done!" God's priest before God's altar shall stand She spoke, and swooning, sank upon the forth

ground. And publicly proclaim our noble chief And a fair daughter of Count Panago, Then rose the Count, and every lip was In God's name and the Church's, man and still, wife.

Hushed in amazing silence; and he spoke: And need there is that every chamber shine “Ye burghers of Saluzzo, trusty friends, Beswept and garnished, that the palace Worshipful sirs, ye see before ye here smile

Griselda, my most spotless, noblest bride. Resplendent, as befits a bridal day.

This lady who hath stepped from off her Griselda's hands are not ill used to toil ;

steed, Griselda's eyes will keep good watch and And sitteth in the seat of honour there, ward

Is not a child of noble Panago, (see Over the kitchen and the banquet-hall. But sprung from me, her sire. Griselda, Say, shall she come obedient to my voice?" In her thy long-lost daughter, and in him,

CONTENTS.