She had been bred amid the luxurious
elegancies of a capital; and as the balmy essence of the rose perfumes
the crystal vase of the seraglio in which it has once been contained,
so she, too, had preserved that fragrant atmosphere of manners and
language which never evaporates entirely.
In her secluded mountains, with the loved husband of her choice, and
with her children, in whom she had complacently centred all the pride
of her maternal heart, she had regretted nothing. She closed the fair
book of youth at these three words,--"God, husband, children." Raphael
especially was her best beloved. She would have purchased for him a
kingly destiny, but, alas, she had only her heart with which to raise
him up, for their slender fortune, and their dreams of prosperity,
would ever and anon crumble to their very foundation beneath the hand
of fate.
Two holy men, driven by persecution to the mountains, had, soon after
the Reign of Terror, taken refuge in her house. They had been
persecuted as members of a mystical religious sect which dimly
predicted a renovation of the age.
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