to flee from these sorrowful memories, donna leonor, who had inherited all the possessions of the house of lara, retired to her palace in segovia. but as she knew now that don ruy de cardenas had miraculously escaped the ambush at cabril, and as each morning, peeping between the half-closed blinds, she followed him when he crossed the square to enter the church, with eyes which never wearied, and were wet, she would not visit our lady of the pillar during the time of her mourning, fearing the haste and impatience of her heart. after{87}wards, one sunday morning, when, instead of black crape she could dress herself in purple silk, she descended the staircase of her palace, pale with a new and divine emotion, trod the flags of the square, and passed through the doors of the church. don ruy de cardenas was kneeling before the altar, where he had deposited his votive bouquet of yellow and white carnations. at the sound of her rich silks he raised his eyes with a hope that was all pure and full of heavenly grace, as if an angel called him. donna leonor knelt down with heaving breast, so pale and so happy that the waxen torches were not more pale, nor happier the swallows that beat their unfettered wings through the ogives of the old church. they were married before that altar, kneeling on those slabs, by don martin, bishop of{88} segovia, in the autumn of the year of grace 1475, when the most mighty and most catholic sovereigns, isabella and ferdinand, through whom god worked great deeds by land and sea, were already rulers of castile.

printed by t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty at the edinburgh university press