use Lovelace, while I languish here in vain, like Celadon or
Lygdamis of cooing memory.

This is not at all probable, however, for Madame Taverneau would not
compromise her respectability so far as to act as chaperon to the loves
of Louise Guerin. After all, what is it to me? I am very good to trouble
myself about the freaks of a prudish screen-painter! She will return,
because the hired piano has not been sent back to Rouen, and not a soul
in the house knows a note of music but Louise, who plays quadrilles and
waltzes with considerable taste, an accomplishment she owes to her
mistress of painting, who had seen better days and possessed some skill.

Do not be too much flattered by this letter of grievances, for I only
wanted an excuse to go to the post-office to see if Louise has
returned--suppose she has not! the thought drives the blood back to my
heart.

Isn't it singular that I should fall desperately in love with this
simple shepherdess--I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles
of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the
Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I
have passed safe and sound through the most dangerous defiles to be
worsted in open country; I could swim in the whirlpool, and now drown in
a fish-pond; every celebrated beauty, every renowned coquette finds me
on my guard. I am as circumspect as a cat walking over a table covered
with glass and china. It is hard to make me pose, as they say in a
certain set; but when the adversary is not to be feared, I allow him so
many advantages that in the end he subdues me.

I was not sufficiently on my guard with Louise at first.

I said to myself: "She is only a grisette"--and left the door of my
heart open--love entered in, and I fear I shall have some trouble in
driving him out.

Excuse, dear Roger, this nonsense, but I must write you something. After
all, my passion is worth as much as yours. Love is the same whether
inspired by an empress or a rope-dancer, and I am just as unhappy at
Louise's disappearance as you are at Irene's.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN

XI.

ROGER DE MONBERT _to_ MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,
Pont de l'Arche (Eure).

PARIS, June 3d 18--.

She is in Paris!

Before knowing it I felt it. The atmosphere was filled with a voice, a
melody, a brightness, a perfume that murmured: Irene is here!

Paris appears to me once more populated; the crowd is no longer a desert
in m