Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/41

38 It is a great error for the heart to hoard up that romance which is only graceful in youth—and it is dangerous, too; for the feeling is as real and as keen, though no longer likely to meet return or sympathy.

Still beautiful, surrounded by flattery, and well aware of all that she had in her power to lavish on the man she loved, Mademoiselle de Montpensier may be pardoned for believing in the reality of his attachment, and for loving M. de Lauzun. Love him she certainly did, with the most earnest and disinterested passion. I know nothing more melancholy than the vain regrets, and vainer hopes, still raised, and only to be disappointed, of her lonely and irritating condition during her lover's weary imprisonment; unless it might be his return, achieved by her at such a price, and then to find herself neglected, duped, and reproached. It was the almost inevitable consequence of their disparity of years; but I never, for the life of me, could discover what consolation there is in knowing that we are suffering from our own folly. To my taste, it rather aggravates the ill; for there is always a sort of comfort in being able to lay the blame on others.

But the period of which we are writing belongs to one of the pleasanter episodes in her existence.