hers. I
wish we were going to stay long enough to go there.

When all the dinner party had gone, Octavia and I and one of the other
women who are staying in the house, went up with Valerie into her
sitting room, and coseyed round the fire; but when Tom and the Vicomte
knocked at the door, and wanted to come in, too, and cosey with us,
Valerie looked the wee-est trifle shocked, and rather nervously put
them off; and she said to me afterwards that the room opened right into
her bedroom, and Daniel would have been awfully cross if they had come
in! It is in tiny trifles like this that even Valerie is a fraction
provincial. I suppose she had a Puritan ancestor. Puritans, as one
knows, always have those odd minds that see something bad in
everything.

This morning some of them went to church, but I was not in time. I was
so tired I overslept myself and then stayed hours in my bath. The
bath-rooms here are superb. Certainly the American plumbers are the
best in the world. I can't imagine what the American women do when they
marry foreign noblemen and go home with them to their old castles where
they would be expected to wash in a dish.

When I got down I found Gaston pacing the library like a maniac.
_"Enfin, enfin,"_ he cried, as he kissed my hand.

"_Enfin_ what?" I said, and he told me he had been waiting here for me
the whole morning, and they would soon be home from church and he would
not get another chance to see me alone. So I just played with him a
little, Mamma!--and it was too delightful being as provoking as
possible and yet perfectly sage. Harry could not have really objected
to a word I said, but all the same it drove Gaston crazy. I have never
had a chance before, you know, because all these years, what with
having babies and the fuss and time that takes, and Harry never leaving
me for a moment, and glaring at every other man who came near, I did
not know how enjoyable a little fencing could be. And when the rest did
come back I only talked to Daniel Latour on purpose to tease Gaston,
and I really amused myself.

Lots more people came to luncheon, and though it is in the wilds of the
country, what we would call, they were all in lovely afternoon dresses,
as if it were town and the height of the season. But we were so merry
at lunch. A general conversation is far more bright and entertaining
than at home.

After lunch we walked in the woods, and I can never tell you of the
beauty of it, with the scent of