s not your
Alfieri.'

'How should he? Whence could he draw upon the noble fund of emotions
that fill that great heart?'

A smile of proud, ineffable scorn was all her reply.

'Tell me rather of yourself, Marietta mia,' said he, taking her hand,
and placing her at his side. 'I long to hear how you became great and
distinguished, as I see you.'

'The human heart throbs alike beneath rags or purple. When I could make
tears course down the rude cheeks that were gaunt with famine, the task
was easy to move those whose natures yielded to lighter impulse. For a
whole winter--it was the first after we parted--I was the actress of
a little theatre in the cite. We dramatised the events of the day; and
they whose hard toil estranged them from the world of active life, could
see at evening the sorrows and sufferings of the nobility they hated
on "the scene." The sack of chateau and the guillotine were favourite
themes; and mine was to portray some woman of the people, seduced,
wronged, deserted, but avenged! A chance--a caprice of the
moment--brought Riquetti one night to our theatre. He came behind the
scenes and talked with me. My accent betrayed my birth, and we talked
Italian. He questioned me closely, how and where I had learned to
declaim. I spoke of you, though not by name. "Ah!" cried he, "a lover
already!" The look which he gave me at the words was like a stab; I felt
it here, in my heart. It was the careless scoff of one who deemed that
to such as me no sense of delicacy need be observed. He might think
and say as he pleased, my station was too ignoble to suggest respect. I
hated him, and turned away, vowing, if occasion served, to be
revenged upon him. He came a few nights after, accompanied by several
others--there were ladies too, handsome and splendidly dressed. This
splendour shocked the meanness of our misery, and even outraged
the meanly clad audience around. I saw this, and seized it as the
opportunity of my vengeance. Our piece was, as usual, the story of our
daily life; I represented a seduced peasant girl, left to starve in a
chateau, from which the owners had gone to enjoy the delights of Paris.
I had wandered on foot to the capital, and was supposed to be in search
of my seducer through the streets. I sat famished and shivering upon a
door-sill, watching with half-listless gaze the rich tide of humanity
that swept past. I heeded not the proud display of equipages; the gay
groups; the gorgeous procession