as, as dear remembrances.
Something more than these, an impression a little stronger, will
oftentimes give the motive to a whole life. You doubt it; well, listen
to a confession of my own.

'When I first took service under my present masters, they assigned to
me, as the sphere of duty, a small and miserable theatre in the cite.
When I tell you that the entrance was four sous, you have the measure
of its pretensions. What singular destiny brought our strange corps
together I cannot think; we were of every class and condition of life,
and of every shade of temperament and character. There was a Catalonian
condemned for life to the galleys in Spain; a Swiss, who had poisoned a
whole family; a monk, whose convent had been burned, and he himself the
only one escaped; a court lady, who had been betrothed to an ambassador;
and a gipsy girl, who had exhibited her native dances through all the
towns of Italy. These were but a few of our incongruous elements, and
it is with the last of them only I have to deal--the gipsy. Whence she
came, or with whom, I never could learn. I only know that one evening,
from some illness of our first actress, we were driven upon our own
resources to amuse the public. Each, after his fashion, delivered
some specimen of his talents, by repeating some well-known part, some
oft-recited speech or song. When it came to her turn to appear, she
evinced no fear or trepidation; she did not even ask a question of
advice or counsel, but walked boldly on, stood for a second or two
contemplating the dense crowd before her, and then began a strange, wild
rhapsody, illustrating the events of the time. She told of the nobles
living in splendour, ignoring the sorrows of the poor, forgetting their
very existence. She described their life of luxury and pleasure, how
they beguiled their leisure hours with enjoyments. She counterfeited
their polished intercourse. She was a duchess; her ragged, tattered
shawl swept the ground as a train, and she curtsied with a grace and
dignity the highest might have envied. She presented her daughter to
some great noble: the young girl was asked to sing; and then, taking
her guitar, she sang a troubadour melody, and with a touching tenderness
that brought tears over cheeks seared and sorrow-worn. Her aim was
evidently to throw over the haughty existence of a hated class the
softened light of a home; to show that among that proud order the same
sympathies lived and reigned, the same af