However, in the end the love of poetry and appreciation of its beauty awoke in me. The first spark of passion that fired my heart and imagination was kindled by Virgil’s magnificent epic, and I well remember how my voice broke as I tried to construe aloud the fourth book of the Æneid. One day, stumbling along, I came to the passage where Dido--the presents of Æneas heaped around her--gives up her life upon the funeral pyre; the agony of the dying queen, the cries of her sister, her nurse, her women; the horror of that scene that struck pity even to the hearts of the Immortals, all rose so vividly before me that my lips trembled, my words came more and more indistinctly, and at the line-- “Quæsivit cœlo lucem ingemuitque reperta,” I stopped dead. Then my dear father’s delicate tact stepped in. Apparently noticing nothing, he said, gently: “That will do for to-day, my boy; I am tired.” And I tore away to give vent to my Virgilian misery unmolested. II ESTELLE Will it be credited that when I was only twelve years old, and even before I fell under the spell of music, I became the victim of that cruel passion so well described by the Mantuan? My mother’s father, who bore a name immortalised by Scott--Marmion--lived at Meylan, about seven miles from Grenoble. This district, with its scattered hamlets, the valley of the winding Isère, the Dauphiny mountains that here join a spur of the Alps, is one of the most romantic spots I know. Here my mother, my sisters, and I usually passed three weeks towards the end of summer. Now and then my uncle, Felix Marmion, who followed the fiery track of the great Emperor, would pay a flying visit during our stay, wreathed with cannon smoke and ornamented with a fine sabre cut across the face. He was then only adjutant-major in the Lancers; but young, gallant, ready to lay down his life for one look from his leader, he believed the throne of Napoleon as stable as Mont Blanc. His taste for music made him a great addition to our gay little circle, for he both sang and played the violin well. High over Meylan, niched in a crevice of the mountain, stands a small white house, half-hidden amidst its vineyards and gardens, behind which rise the woods, the barren hills, a ruined tower, and St Eynard--a frowning mass of rock. This sweet secluded spot, evidently predestined to romance, was the home of Madame Gautier, who lived there with two nieces, of whom the younger was called Estelle. Her name at once caught my attention from its being that of the heroine of Florian’s pastoral _Estelle and Némorin_, which I had filched from my father’s library, and read a dozen times in secret. Estelle was just eighteen--tall, graceful, with large, grave, questioning eyes that yet could smile, hair worthy to ornament the helmet of Achilles, and feet--I will not say Andalusian, but pure Parisian, and on those little feet she wore ... pink slippers!