“Thou art too cruel,” said Isabella to Hippolita: “canst thou behold this anguish of a virtuous mind, and not commiserate it?”
“Not pity my child!” said Hippolita, catching Matilda in her arms—“Oh! I know she is good, she is all virtue, all tenderness, and duty. I do forgive thee, my excellent, my only hope!”
The princesses then revealed to Hippolita their mutual inclination for Theodore, and the purpose of Isabella to resign him to Matilda. Hippolita blamed their imprudence, and showed them the improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born. Some comfort it gave her to find their passion of so recent a date, and that Theodore had had but little cause to suspect it in either. She strictly enjoined them to avoid all corresponde
