The Blithedale Romance - Page 7/170

This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography,

need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had assumed it, in

the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded well

with something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's

figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it in their

familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in good part,

and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was thus far

appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new

philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what

to do with.