• CHAPTER I. . "The lady I love will soon be a bride, With a diadem on her brow; Oh why did she flatter my boyish pride, She's going to leave me now." IT is a marvel to those unacquainted with the philos-ophy of navigation, that ships may sail with equal speed in opposite directions, under the impelling force of the same breeze : and it is often an equal paradox with casual observers of mental phenomena, that individuals may con-tribute as really to the success of an enterprise by the law of repulsion as by the more obvious exercise of voluntary influence. Thus Isabella of Angoulême, who was perhaps as little occupied with plans military or religious, as any beauty that counted warriors among her conquests could well be, as effectually impelled a noble knight and leader to undertake the Holy War, as did Adela, Countess of Blois, whose whole heart was in the work. Isabella was the only child and heiress of the Count of Angoulême. Her mother was of the family of Courteney, the first lords of Edessa. In very early youth Isabella had been betrothed to Hugh X. de Lusignan, the Marcher or guardian of the northern border of Aquitaine. The little bride dwelt at the castle of her lord, flattered and caressed by every vassal who hoped to win the favor of his master, while the gallant^Hugfj^ surnamed le Brun, watched over her interests, and directed her education with the care of a man anticipating full fruition in the ripened charms and unrivalled attractions of one who looked upon him as her future husband. Count Hugh as a distinguished peer of France, had been summoned to form one of the splendid cortege which Philip