remain a few minutes,
but my cousin was so uneasy at finding her daughter worse, that I did
not like to leave before the doctor pronounced her better. This illness
will assist me greatly in the fictions I am going to write Roger from
Fontainebleau to-morrow. I will tell him we were obliged to leave
suddenly, without having time to bid him adieu, to go and nurse a sick
relative; that she is better now, and Madame de Langeac and I will
return to Paris next week. In three days I shall return, and no one will
ever know I have been to Pont de l'Arche, except M. de Meilhan, who will
doubtless soon forget all about it; besides, he intends remaining in
Normandy till the end of the year, so there is no risk of our meeting.

Oh! I must tell you about the amusing evening M. de Meilhan and I spent
together at Madame Taverneau's. How we did laugh over it! He was king of
the feast, although he would not acknowledge it. Madame Taverneau was so
proud of entertaining the young lord of the village, that she had rushed
into the most reckless extravagance to do him honor. She had thrown the
whole town in a state of excitement by sending to Rouen for a piano. But
the grand event of the evening was a clock. Yet I must confess that the
effect was quite different from what she expected--it was a complete
failure. We usually sit in the dining-room, but for this grand occasion
the parlor was opened. On the mantel-piece in this splendid room there
is a clock adorned by a dreadful bronze horse running away with a fierce
warrior and some unheard-of Turkish female. I never saw anything so
hideous; it is even worse than your frightful clock with Columbus
discovering America! Madame Taverneau thought that M. de Meilhan, being
a poet and an artist, would compliment her upon possessing so rare and
valuable a work of art. Fortunately he said nothing--he even refrained
from smiling; this showed his great generosity and delicacy, for it is
only a man of refinement and delicacy that respects one's
illusions--especially when they are illusions in imitation bronze!

Upon my arrival here this morning, I was pained to hear that the trees
in front of my window are to be cut down; this news ought not to disturb
me in the least, as I never expect to return to this house again, yet it
makes me very sad; these old trees are so beautiful, and I have thought
so many things as I would sit and watch their long branches waving in
the summer breeze!...and the little light