The Love of Clotilde
_Armando Palacio Valdés._

Captain Veneno's Proposal of Marriage
_Pedro Antonio de Alarcón._




FIRST LOVE

Emilia Pardo-Bazan


How old was I then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen,
for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won't
venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the
heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations.

If I do not remember well _when_, I can at least say exactly _how_ my
first love revealed itself. I was very fond--as soon as my aunt had
gone to church to perform her evening devotions--of slipping into her
bedroom and rummaging her chest of drawers, which she kept in
admirable order. Those drawers were to me a museum; in them I always
came across something rare or antique, which exhaled an archaic and
mysterious scent, the aroma of the sandalwood fans which perfumed her
white linen. Pin-cushions of satin now faded; knitted mittens,
carefully wrapped in tissue paper; prints of saints; sewing materials;
a reticule of blue velvet embroidered with bugles, an amber and silver