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A MAIDEN'S FIRST ROMANCE.
To this period of Modeste's eager rage for reading succeeded the exercise of a strange faculty given to vigorous imaginations,--the power, namely, of making herself an actor in a dream-existence; of representing to her own mind the things desired, with so vivid a conception that they seemed actually to attain reality; in short, to enjoy by thought,--to live out her years within her mind; to marry; to grow old; to attend her own funeral like Charles V.; to play within herself the comedy of life and, if need be, that of death.

Modeste was indeed playing, but all alone, the comedy of Love.

She fancied herself adored to the summit of her wishes in many an imagined phase of social life.

Sometimes as the heroine of a dark romance, she loved the executioner, or the wretch who ended her days upon the scaffold, or, like her sister, some Parisian youth without a penny, whose struggles were all beneath a garret-roof.