nd
kisses. Ah! Why am I not in your arms?

"This morning, when I was just going to seal my letter, Murgi brought me
yours. Ah, how sorry I am! I feel more than ever that my heart is not
made for these lengthened separations. No, I can't exist absent from
what I adore. I tried to reason myself into submission for five days;
but how am I to endure the fifteen that it will be now? Pity me, dear
Misis. It is delightful to me to see that your regret is equal to mine;
but the more you make me love you, the greater is my grief. If any thing
could lessen the sorrow caused me by your letter, it is to hear that you
are well. The assurance of that gives me one grief less. Take care of
yourself, for my sake. I can't understand how the letter I wrote you on
Sunday has not reached you yet. Write to me often, if 'tis but one word.
I embrace you again--Your Fanny."

Thanks to the wise precaution of Madame Lebrun, there is a blank of
seven years in her correspondence with her husband. But if we lose the
pleasure of reading a multitude of letters worthy of those we have
transcribed, the cause of the Sieur Lebrun is no loser by the omission;
for we find, at the end of those seven years, the Dame Lebrun still
unchanged--a clear proof that no change has, in the interval, taken
place in the Sieur Lebrun. _Voici_, continues the _Memoire_--behold the
letter she wrote to him on the 17th September 1767, from the
country-house of--who do you think?--the Sieur Grimod.

"I flatter myself, my dear little man, that I shall have a good report
of your health. I am told you started in first-rate condition; no doubt
the open air, and the pleasures of such agreeable society, will keep you
in good case. I need not wish you any new enjoyments. I have only to
congratulate you on those you possess. Let me enter into them, for the
description of yours will make me more fully appreciate my own. I hope,
at the same time, you will perceive that there is a something wanting,
and that you will have the same feelings on the subject as I have. The
country agrees with me admirably, and I am in wonderful health. We walk
a great deal, and musicate ('musiquons') a great deal more. We lay all
the elements under contribution for our amusement. We have a gondola for
our water parties, a swing for the air, and we only want Torraeus and his
Acheron to take a trip through fire. We have made parties to go fishing,
and we intend making one to go fowling with nets and looking-g