the morning!

You will ask, my dear Madame de Camps, what this long tale has to do
with my own ridiculous adventure. That is what I would tell you now if
my letter were not so immoderately long. I told you my tale would prove
to be a feuilleton-story, and I think the moment has come to make the
customary break in it. I hope I have not sufficiently exalted your
curiosity to have the right not to satisfy it. To be concluded,
therefore, whether you like it or not, in the following number.

VI. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME OCTAVE DE CAMPS

Paris, March, 1839.

The elements of the long biographical dissertation I lately sent you,
my dear friend, were taken chiefly from a recent letter from Monsieur
Marie-Gaston. On leaning of the brave devotion shown in his defence his
first impulse was to rush to Paris and press the hand of the friend who
avenged himself thus nobly for neglect and forgetfulness. Unfortunately
the evening before his departure he met with a dangerous fall at
Savarezza, one of the outlying quarries of Carrara, and dislocated
his ankle. Being obliged to postpone his journey, he wrote to Monsieur
Dorlange to express his gratitude; and, by the same courier, he sent
me a voluminous letter, relating the whole past of their lifelong
friendship and asking me to see Monsieur Dorlange and be the mediator
between them. He was not satisfied with the expression of his warm
gratitude, he wanted also to show him that in spite of contrary
appearances, he had never ceased to deserve the affection of his early
friend.

On receiving Monsieur Gaston's letter, my first idea was to write to
the sculptor and ask him to come and see me, but finding that he was not
entirely recovered from his wound, I went, accompanied by my husband and
Nais, to the artist's studio, which we found in a pleasant little house
in the rue de l'Ouest, behind the garden of the Luxembourg, one of the
most retired quarters of Paris. We were received in the vestibule by a
woman about whom Monsieur de l'Estorade had already said a word to
me. It appears that the _laureat_ of Rome did not leave Italy without
bringing away with him an agreeable souvenir in the form of a bourgeoise
Galatea, half housekeeper, half model; about whom certain indiscreet
rumors are current. But let me hasten to say that there was absolutely
nothing in her appearance or manner to lead me to credit them. In fact,
there was something cold and proud and almost savage ab