_Illa_.--"Diliana. She has run away from her father, and will offer herself as servant to Sidonia, because old Wolde is sick."
_Hæc_.--"She must be foolish then, if this be true."
_Illa_.--"Ay, she is foolish, but it is from pure love, which indeed is a godlike folly; for Sidonia hath bewitched her poor father, and he grows worse and worse, and her prayers to the sorceress are of no avail to help him, so she hath privately left her father's castle, to offer herself as servant to Sidonia; for no wench, far or near, will be found who will take old Wolde's place, and she hopes, in return for this, that the sorceress will give her something from her herbal to cure her old father. Ha! what do I see? How her beautiful hair streams behind her upon the wind! How she runs like a deer over the heather, and looks back often, for her heart is trembling lest her father might send after her. Now she enters the wood; see, she kneels down, and prays for her father and for herself, that God will keep her steps. Let us pray also, dear sisters, for her, for the poor priest, and for the unfortunate maiden."
Whereupon they all fell upon their knees, and the possessed virgin offered up so beautiful a prayer that none had ever heard the like before, and every face was bedewed with tears. After which she awoke, and, as the first time, remembered nothing whatever of what had passed, or of what she had uttered.
_Of the arrival of Diliana and the death of the convent priest--Item, how the unfortunate corpse is torn by a wolf_.
Scarcely had the abbess returned to her apartment when Diliana sprang in, with flowing hair, and her beautiful, blooming face looking like a rose sprinkled with morning dew. So the worthy matron screamed first with wonder that all should be true, then taking the lovely young maiden in her arms, pressed her to her heart, and asked--
"Wherefore comest thou here, my beloved Diliana?"
_Illa_.--"I have run away from my father, good mother, and will serve my cousin Sidonia Bork as her waiting-maid, hoping that in return she will give him something out of her herbal to heal his poor frame, which is distracted day and night with pain, even as she healed you and Sheriff Sparling; and she will do this, I am sure, because I hear that her maid, Anne Wolde, is sick, and no one in all the country round will take service with her, they say."