will defer these pleasures of memory to the latest possible period of enjoyment."
"Till to-morrow," replied she.
"So soon!" replied the Duke; "And can you tell us so with a smile?"
"Ah! you, I know, are one of those," continued Christina, "who imagine existence is bounded by Paris—that life elsewhere is but dull vegetation! Now, denounce me not as a heretic; but I prefer Rome. Here everything is absorbed in the present, as all there is merged in the past. Yet, you must admit, that the past, with its gathered glories of many ages, exceeds the past which has only to-day?"
"Yes," replied Candale; "but such glory has its gloom. The shadow of the tombs whence it emanates rests upon it."
"But what superb repose!—what deep conviction of the worth in life's nobler uses! I have," said the Queen, "Higher hopes, and more generous feelings, in those marble solitudes, sacred to great names, than I have here, where pleasure is business, and a tabouret the best ambition. It is very catching; I am half inclined to dispute precedence myself."
"Yet these forms are necessary," replied an elderly courtier, whose well-powdered ailes de
