y R--, and I was, therefore, content to
remain. One morning she said to me, "My dear Valerie, do me the favour
to tighten the laces of my stays."

She was, as usual, writing in her dressing-gown.

"Oh, tighter yet; as tight as you can draw them. That will do nicely."

"Why you can hardly breathe, Sempronia."

"But I can write, my dear child, and, as I before observed, the mind and
the body influence each other. I am about to write a strictly moral
dialogue, and I never could do it unless I am strait-laced. Now I feel
fit for the wife of Cato and of Rome."

A few days afterwards she amused me still more. After writing about
half-an-hour, she threw down her pen--

"I never can do it; come upstairs, my dear Valerie, and help me off with
my stays. I must be _a l'abandon_."

I followed her, and having removed these impediments we returned to the
boudoir.

"There," said she, sitting down, "I think I shall manage it now: I feel
as if I could."

"Manage what?" inquired I.

"My dear, I am about to write a love scene, very warm and impassioned,
and I could not do it, confined as I was. Now that I am loose, I can
give loose to the reins of my imagination, and delineate with the arrow
of Cupid's self. My heroine is reclining, with her hand on her cheek;
put yourself in that attitude, my dear dear Valerie, as if you were
meditating upon the prolonged absence of one dear to you. Exactly--
beautiful--true to nature--but I forgot, a page enters--don't move, I'll
ring the bell."

Lionel answered quickly, as usual.

"Here, Lionel, I want you to play the page."

"I've no time for play, my lady; I'm page in earnest. There's all the
knives to clean."

"Never mind the knives just now. Observe, Lionel, you are supposed to
be sent a message to that lovely girl, who is sitting absorbed in a soft
reverie. You enter her presence unperceived, and are struck with her
beauty; you lean against a tree, in a careless but graceful attitude,
with your eyes fixed upon her lovely features. Now lean against the
door, as I have described, and then I shall be able to write."

I could not help smiling at the absurdity of this scene, the more so as
Lionel, just passing his fingers through his hair, and then pulling up
his shirt collar, took his position, saying, "Now, Miss Valerie, we'll
see who performs best: I think you will be sooner tired of sitting than
I shall be of looking at you."

"Excellent, Lionel!--exactly the posit