erings
by the way. The style of our heroine is so magical, that we are
constantly tempted to let her tell her own story, and to give to the
gems of hers which we insert in these pages the slightest possible
setting of our own. But it is not our business to anticipate for any one
a reading from which no student of modern literature, or, indeed, of
modern mind, will excuse himself. We must give only so much as shall
make it sure that others will seek more at the fountain-head; but for
this purpose we must turn less to the book, and trust for our narration
to a sufficiently recent perusal still vividly remembered.

Aurore could scarcely have passed out of her third year when she
accompanied her mother to Madrid, where her father was already in
attendance upon Murat. She remembers their quarters in the palace,
magnificently furnished, and the half-broken toys of the royal
children, whose destruction she was allowed to complete. To please his
commander-in-chief, her father caused her to assume a miniature uniform,
like those of the Prince's aide-de-camps, whose splendid discomfort she
still recalls. This would seem a sort of prophecy of that assuming
of male attire in later years which was to constitute a capital
circumstance in her life. The return from the Peninsula was weary and
painful to the mother and child, and made more so by the disgust with
which the Spanish roadside bill-of-fare inspired the more civilized
French stomach. They were forced to make a part of the journey in wagons
with the common soldiery and camp-retainers, and Aurore in this manner
took the itch, to her mother's great mortification. Arrived at Nohant,
however, the care of Deschartres, joined to a self-imposed _regime_ of
green lemons, which the little girl devoured, skins, seeds, and all,
soon healed the ignominious eruption. Here the whole family passed some
months of happy repose, too soon interrupted by the tragical death of
Maurice. He had brought back from Spain a formidable horse, which he had
christened the _terrible_ Leopardo, and which, brave cavalier as he was,
he never mounted without a certain indefinable misgiving. He often said,
"I ride him badly, because I am afraid of him, and he knows it."
Dining with some friends in the neighborhood, one day, he was late in
returning. His wife and mother passed the evening together, the first
jealous and displeased at his protracted absence, the second occupied in
calming the irritation and rebuki