other. Some of your
husband's old associates here tell me he is charming,--that he was the
delight of all the society at one time. Tell me all about him. I can
so readily like anything that belongs to you, I 'm prepared already to
esteem him.'"

"Most flattering," murmured my father.

"'It will be too late, dear cousin, to refuse me; for when this
reaches you, I shall be already on the way to your mountains.--Are they
mountains, by the way?--So then make up your mind to my visit, with
the best grace you can. I should fill this letter with news of all
our friends and acquaintances here, but that I rely upon these very
narratives to amuse you when we meet,--not that there is anything very
strange or interesting to recount. People marry, and quarrel, and make
love, fight, go in debt, and die, in our enlightened age, without the
slightest advancement on the wisdom of our ancestors; and except that we
think very highly of ourselves, and very meanly of all others, I do not
see that we have made any considerable progress in our knowledge.

"'I am all eagerness to see you once again. Are you altered?--I hope and
trust not. Neither fatter nor thinner, nor paler, nor more carnation,
than I knew you; not graver, I could swear. No, ma chere cousine, yours
was ever a nature to extract brightness from what had been gloom to
others. What a happy inspiration was it of that good Monsieur Carew to
relieve the darkness of his native climate by such brilliancy!

"'Still, how many sacrifices must this banishment have cost you! Do not
deny it, Fifine. If you be not very much in love, this desolation must
be a heavy infliction. I have just been looking at the map, and the
whole island has an air of indescribable solitude and remoteness, and
much further distant from realms of civilization than I fancied.
You must be my guide, Fifine; I will accept of no other to all those
wonderful sea-caves and coral grottoes which I hear so much of! What
excursions am I already planning! what delicious hours, floating over
the blue sea, beneath those gigantic cliffs that even in a woodcut look
stupendous! And so you live almost entirely upon fish! I must teach your
chef some Breton devices in cookery. My old tutor, who was a cure at
Scamosse, taught me to dress soles "en gratin," with two simple herbs to
be found everywhere; so that, like Vincent de Paul, I shall be extending
the blessings of cultivation in the realms of barbarism. I picture you
strolli