in love with historical events, dreamed
of old chests, guardrooms and minstrels. She would have liked to live in
some old manor-house, like those long-waisted chatelaines who, in the
shade of pointed arches, spent their days leaning on the stone, chin in
hand, watching a cavalier with white plume galloping on his black horse
from the distant fields. At this time she had a cult for Mary Stuart and
enthusiastic veneration for illustrious or unhappy women. Joan of Arc,
Heloise, Agnes Sorel, the beautiful Ferronniere, and Clemence Isaure
stood out to her like comets in the dark immensity of heaven, where also
were seen, lost in shadow and all unconnected, St. Louis with his oak,
the dying Bayard, some cruelties of Louis XI, a little of St.
Bartholomew's, the plume of the Bearnais, and always the remembrance of
the plates painted in honor of Louis XIV.

In the music-class, in the ballads she sang, there was nothing but
little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagunes, gondoliers;--mild
compositions that allowed her to catch a glimpse athwart the obscurity
of style and the weakness of the music of the attractive phantasmagoria
of sentimental realities. Some of her companions brought "keepsakes"
given them as New Year's gifts to the convent. These had to be hidden;
it was quite an undertaking; they were read in the dormitory. Delicately
handling the beautiful satin bindings, Emma looked with dazzled eyes at
the names of the unknown authors, who had signed their verses for the
most part as counts or viscounts.

She trembled as she blew back the tissue paper over the engraving and
saw it folded in two and fall gently against the page. Here behind the
balustrade of a balcony was a young man in a short cloak, holding in his
arms a young girl in a white dress wearing an alms-bag at her belt; or
there were nameless portraits of English ladies with fair curls, who
looked at you from under their round straw hats with their large clear
eyes. Some there were lounging in their carriages, gliding through
parks, a greyhound bounding along in front of the equipage, driven at a
trot by two small postilions in white breeches. Others, dreaming on
sofas with an open letter, gazed at the moon through a slightly open
window half draped by a black curtain. The naive ones, a tear on their
cheeks, were kissing doves through the bars of a Gothic cage, or,
smiling, their heads on one side, were plucking the leaves of a
marguerite with their taper f