CHAPTER IX.
"You would have thought the very windows spake; So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes." SHAKSPEARE.
In an apartment, whose pale, green hangings, embroidered with richly-colored flowers, and whose furniture and ornaments, all of delicate material and refined taste, marked it as a meet boudoir for gentle blood, sat Marie and her husband.

She occupied her favorite seat--a cushion at his feet, and was listening with interest to his animated history of the Sovereign's welcome to Saragossa, the popular ferment at their appearance, the good they had accomplished, and would still accomplish, as their judicious plans matured.

It was clear, he said, that they had resolved the sovereign power should not be merely nominal, as it had been.

By making himself proclaimed and received as grand master of the three great orders of knighthood--Saint Iago, Compostella, and Alcantara--the immense influence of those associations must succumb to, and be guided by, Ferdinand alone; the power of the nobles would thus be insensibly diminished, and the mass of the kingdom--the PEOPLE--as a natural consequence, become of more importance, their position more open to the eyes of the sovereigns, and their condition, physically and morally, ameliorated and improved.
"I feel and acknowledge this, dearest; though one of the class whose power must be diminished to accomplish it;" he continued, "I am too anxious for the internal prosperity of my country to quarrel with any measures which minds so enlightened as its present sovereigns may deem requisite.

But this is but a grave theme for thee, love.