of my child, who they both swore should be an outcast as soon as born, had not prevailed on me; and I at length gave my oath, that never had I yielded to the rites of love but with the count my husband. This done, they left me, and the women were permitted to come in; but I was so disordered with the late treatment I had received, that it very much increased the danger of my condition, and my life was despaired of by every body in the room. I was, however, at last delivered of the eldest of those sons you see here: but never mother less rejoiced in being so. Instead of the congratulations I expected from a father and a husband, and those obliging tendernesses for which women chearfully go through that dreadful moment, mine regarded me but with frowns, and sullen discontent, civil to me but when other company was present. It is certain, that whatever people may pretend, grief, without the assistance of some other disease, will never kill; it may by degrees consume the spirits, and decay the body, but not destroy it immediately, else had not I survived the treatment I then endured; much less that which soon after was my lot. The count, who to that spirit of revenge, which is natural to the Italians in general, had a more than ordinary share of it in his composition; and though he was now pretty well convinced I had not wronged him in fact, was certain in his own mind, that I had done so in intention, and that the other also had not been wanting, had it not been prevented by the death of Lorenzo; it was not in his power to inflict more on him. I must be the next, therefore, that felt the force of his indignation; and though the condition I had been in, had till now prevented him from letting it loose upon me, now was the time to vent the long pent-up passion of his struggling soul, and shew me, that all the love he had borne me, was not sufficient to combat with the dictates of his more prevailing resentment. I was scarce able to go out of my chamber, when he told me, he had a spectacle to present me with, which had formerly
