nd replied, "That, madame! That is a
'creamson ramblaire'--the oldest one in the commune."

Poor fellow, it had never occurred to him that I did not know.

Seven feet to the north of the climbing rose bush was a wide hedge of
tall lilac bushes. So I threw up an arbor between them, and the crimson
rambler now mounts eight feet in the air. It is a glory of color
to-day, and my pride. But didn't I come near to losing it?

The long evenings are wonderful. I sit out until nine, and can read
until almost the last minute. I never light a lamp until I go up to
bed. That is my day. It seems busy enough to me. I am afraid it
will--to you, still so willing to fight, still so absorbed in the
struggle, and still so over-fond of your species--seem futile. Who
knows which of us is right ?--or if our difference of opinion may not be
a difference in our years? If all who love one another were of the same
opinion, living would be monotonous, and conversation flabby. So cheer
up. You are content. Allow me to be.

Ill

June 20, 1914.

I have just received your letter--the last, you say, that you can send
before you sail away again for "The Land of the Free and the Home of the
Brave," where you still seem to feel that it is my duty to return to
die. I vow I will not discuss that with you again. Poverty is an
unpretty thing, and poverty plus old age simply horrid in the wonderful
land which saw my birth, and to which I take off my sun-bonnet in
reverent admiration, in much the same spirit that the peasants still
uncover before a shrine. But it is the land of the young, the
energetic, and the ambitious, the ideal home of the very rich and the
laboring classes. I am none of those--hence here I stay. I turn my
eyes to the west often with a queer sort of amazed pride. If I were a
foreigner--of any race but French--I 'd work my passage out there in an
emigrant ship. As it is, I did forty-five years of hard labor there,
and I consider that I earned the freedom to die where I please.

I can see in "my mind's eye" the glitter in yours as you wrote--and
underscored--I'll wager you spend half your days in writing letters back
to the land you have willfully deserted. As well have stayed among us
and talked--and you talk so much better than you write. "Tut! tut! That
is nasty." Of course I do not deny that I shall miss the inspiration of
your contradictions--or do you call it repartee? I scorn your arguments,
and I h