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538 'Twas there the enamoured Prince found her. He recollected that the first time he had seen her she was thus asleep; but the sentiments she had since inspired him with had become so tender, that he would willingly have given half his life to pass the other half beside her. He gazed on her some time with a pleasure that suspended his grief; his eyes, running eagerly over her charms, rested on her foot, whiter than snow: he felt he could never cease admiring it. He knelt, and took her hand; she woke instantly, appeared vexed that he had seen her foot, and hid it, blushing like a rose, as it opens to the dawning day.

Alas! how soon did that beautiful colour fade! She remarked an unwonted melancholy in the countenance of the Prince. "What ails you, my Lord?" she inquired, with much alarm. "I can tell by your eyes that you are in some affliction." "Ah, who would not be so, dearest Princess," said he to her, shedding tears which he had not the power to suppress; "they are about to part us! I must either leave, or expose you to all the fury of the Queen. She knows of my attachment to you; she has even seen the note you wrote to me—one of her women assures me so—and without the least consideration for my anguish, she cruelly insists on my immediate departure for the court of the King her brother." "What do you tell me, Prince?" exclaimed Constancia; "you are on the point of forsaking me, and you believe that to be necessary for the preservation of my life! Can you possibly entertain such an idea? Let me perish before your eyes; I shall be less to be pitied than if I am condemned to live without you."

So affecting a conversation could not fail of being often interrupted by sobs and tears. Those young lovers had never yet endured the pangs of absence; they had never foreseen such a misfortune, and this gave additional weight to the blow which had fallen upon them. They exchanged a thousand vows of eternal fidelity. The Prince promised Constancia to return with the greatest speed. "I go," said he, "but to affront my uncle and his daughter, so that they shall abandon all idea of giving her to me for a wife. I will do everything to disgust the Princess, and I shall succeed in my object." "You must not show yourself, then," said Constancia, "or you will please her, do what you will to prevent