their nests!

According to Vauvenargues, "The first days of spring possess less charm
than the growing virtue of a young man."

Well, it would ill befit me to depreciate the value of such an axiom,
coming from the pen of such a great philosopher; still, and without
wishing to disdain his politeness in so far as it is really flattering
to myself at this particular moment of my career, I do not hesitate to
raise my voice after his, and assert, without any pretence of modesty,
that this charm is at least as great in the case of Flora's lover as in
mine, and that it is only fair to accord to each his just portion. If my
budding virtue possesses ineffable charms, no less powerful are those of
the lilacs and the roses. It is really, I assure you, a wonderful
spectacle. You ought to have witnessed it! Some day I will tell you all
about it, as I have just been doing to my uncle, who finds it all very
curious, although he professes only to understand me "very
approximately."

Getting up at sunrise, Kondje and I take a run through the coppices, her
little feet all wet with the dew. We feel free, merry, and careless,
dismissing the commissary to oblivion, and trusting to each other's
love, the full charms of which this solitary companionship has revealed
to us. I do not risk more than two excursions to Paris each week, one to
my aunt Eudoxia's, and one to my aunt Van Cloth's. Having made these
angel's visits, and performed various family duties, I vanish, by day or
by night as the case may be, eluding the vigilance of the spies who have
no doubt been set at my heels by the unscrupulous mother, or by _that
rascal Kiusko_, as we now call him. These adventures augment my
rapturous felicity; and if time and destiny have shorn me of the
privilege of my sultanship, which you say rendered me so proud and vain,
I retain at all events the glory of being happy.

I am in love, my dear fellow; and therefore I dream and forget. But
there is another still darker speck on my serene sky. Anna Campbell is
just approaching her eighteenth birthday, and I cannot think of this
without a good deal of melancholy. Although my uncle is delighted to
take occasional walks here, at the end of which he finds a capital glass
of madeira waiting for him, he, as you are aware, is not a person of
romantic temperament, and has already noted with his scrutinising eye
the ravages caused by a double passion, which bodes no good for his
daughter's married life.