been her native home,
Seville, where skies are blue and evening sweet.
She, at thirteen, the sovereign of the town,
Had lovers at her feet.

For her three Toreadors had gone to death
Or victory, the prize to be a kiss--
One kiss from those red lips of sweetest breath--
A longed-for touch of bliss!

The features of the Spanish girl's portrait have served so often as
those of the courtesan in so many self-styled _poems_, that it would be
tiresome to quote here the hundred lines of description. To judge of the
lengths to which audacity had carried Dinah, it will be enough to give
the conclusion. According to Madame de la Baudraye's ardent pen, Paquita
was so entirely created for love that she can hardly have met with a
knight worthy of her; for

.... In her passionate fire Every man would have swooned from the heat,
When she at love's feast, in her fervid desire,
As yet had but taken her seat.

"And yet she could quit the joys of Seville, its woods and fields of
orange-trees, for a Norman soldier who won her love and carried her away
to his hearth and home. She did not weep for her Andalusia, the Soldier
was her whole joy.... But the day came when he was compelled to start
for Russia in the footsteps of the great Emperor."

Nothing could be more dainty than the description of the parting between
the Spanish girl and the Normandy Captain of Artillery, who, in the
delirium of passion expressed with feeling worthy of Byron, exacted from
Paquita a vow of absolute fidelity, in the Cathedral at Rouen in front
of the alter of the Blessed Virgin, who

Though a Maid is a woman, and never forgives
When lovers are false to their vows.

A large part of the poem was devoted to describing Paquita's sufferings
when alone in Rouen waiting till the campaign was over; she stood
writhing at the window bars as she watched happy couples go by; she
suppressed her passion in her heart with a determination that consumed
her; she lived on narcotics, and exhausted herself in dreams.

Almost she died, but still her heart was true;
And when at last her soldier came again,
He found her beauty ever fresh and new--
He had not loved in vain!

"But he, pale and frozen by the cold of Russia, chilled to the very
marrow, met his yearning fair one with a melancholy smile."

The whole poem was written up to this situation, which was worked out
with such vigor and boldness as too entirely justified t