beauty, strength, courage, and devotion had rambled under these trees
for years with her, nor had the new-comer's presence ever been made a
cause of jealousy or complaint by the one whom his coming displaced.
They were a strange procession of all complexions and garbs. Achilles
the golden-haired had been with her in his day, and so had the
melancholy Master of Ravenswood: and the young Djalma, the lover of
Adrienne of the "Juif Errant," forgotten of English girls to-day; and
Nello, the proud gondolier lad with the sweet voice, who was loved by
the mother and the daughter of the Aldinis; and the unnamed youth who
went mad for Maud; and Henry Esmond, and Stunning Warrington, and Jane
Eyre's Rochester, and ever so many else. Each and all of these in turn
loved her and was passionately loved by her, and all had done great
things for her; and for each she had done far greater things. She had
made them victorious, crowned them with laurels, died for them. It was a
peculiarity of her temperament that when she read some pathetic story it
was not at the tragic passages that her tears came. It was not the
deaths that touched her most. It was when she read of bold and generous
things suddenly done, of splendid self-sacrifice, of impossible rescue
and superhuman heroism, that she could not keep down her feelings, and
was glad when only the watching, untelltale trees could see the tears in
her eyes.

She had, however, two heroes chief over all the rest, whose story she
found it impossible to keep apart, and whom she blended commonly into
one odd compound. These were Hamlet and Alceste, the "Misanthrope" of
Moliere. It was sometimes Alceste who offered to be buried quick with
Ophelia in the grave; and it was often Hamlet who interjected his scraps
of poetic cynicism between the pretty and scandalous prattlings of
Celimene and her petticoaterie. But perhaps Alceste came nearest to the
heart of our young maid as she grew up. She said to herself over and
over again that "C'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde." She
refused "d'un coeur la vaste complaisance qui ne fait de merite aucune
difference," and declared that "pour le trancher net l'ami du genre
humain n'est point du tout mon fait." No doubt there was unconscious or
only half conscious affectation in this, as there is in the ways of
almost all young people who are fond of reading; and her way of thinking
herself a girl-Alceste would probably have vanished with other whims,