“Worthy Ambrosio,” she said in a feeble voice, while she pressed his hand to her lips; “I am now at liberty to express, how grateful is my heart for your attention and kindness. I am upon the bed of death; yet an hour, and I shall be no more. I may therefore acknowledge without restraint, that to relinquish your society was very painful to me: but such was the will of a parent, and I dared not disobey. I die without repugnance: there are few, who will lament my leaving them; there are few, whom I lament to leave. Among those few, I lament for none more than for yourself; but we shall meet again, Ambrosio! We shall one day meet in heaven: there shall our friendship be renewed, and my mother shall view it with pleasure!”

She paused. The abbot shuddered when she mentioned Elvira: Antonia imputed his emotion to pity and concern for her.

“You are grieved for me, father,” she continued; “Ah! sigh not for my loss. I have no crimes to repent, at least none of which I am conscious, and I restore my soul without fear to him from whom I received it. I have but few requests to make: yet let me hope that what few I have shall be granted. Let a solemn mass be said for my soul’s repose, and another for that of my beloved mother. Not that I doubt her resting in her grave: I am now convinced that my reason wandered, and the falsehood of the ghost’s prediction is sufficient to prove my error. But everyone has some failing: my mother may have had hers, though I knew them not: I therefore wish a mass to be celebrated for her repose, and the expense may be defrayed by the little wealth of which I am possessed. Whatever may then remain, I bequeath to my aunt Leonella. When I am dead, let the Marquis de las Cisternas know that his brother’s unhappy family can no longer importune him. But disappointment makes me unjust: they tell me that he is ill, and perhaps had it been in his power, he wished to have protected me. Tell him then, father, only that I am dead, and that if he had any faults to me, I forgave him from my heart. This done, I have nothing more to ask for, than your prayers: promise to remember my requests, and I shall resign my life without a pang or sorrow.”