that we are all blunderers, but indisposed for such a drastic
remedy as would alone cure us. Just you remark to any lawyer that
marriage is a mistake, as I have said before, and see what answer you
will get. He will certainly reply to you that there is no other way of
securing the transmission of property safely. I confess that this view
of wealth makes me, for one, a most desperate Radical. Only think, if
there were no property, we should all be frisking about in our happy
valleys as free and as merry as little kids. I shouldn't now be obliged
to put on all my war-paint and beads, like a savage, and go out to a
dreadful court dinner, four hours long, because George has a "career"
and thinks my suffering advances it. Oh, you happy child, to have
nothing worse to do than to rattle down the Bois in a _milord_, and sup
off a _matelote_ by the lake with your Romeo!

* * * * *

_From the Princess di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, to the Lady Gwendolen
Chichester, St. Petersburg._

We are to leave for Paris and Trouville to-morrow. I have yielded, as
you and mamma seemed to think it was my _duty_ to do. But my life is
over. I shall say farewell to all happiness when the gates of
Coombe-Bysset close upon me. Henceforth we shall be like everybody else.
However, you cannot reproach me any longer with being selfish, nor can
he. There is a great friend of his, the Duchess of Aquila Fulva, at
Trouville. She writes to him very often, I know. He never offers to show
me her letters. _I believe the choice of Trouville is her doing._ Write
to me at Paris, at The Windsor.

* * * * *

_From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, St. Petersburg, to the Princess di
San Zenone, Hotel Windsor, Paris._

MY POOR CHILD!--

Has the green-eyed monster already invaded your gentle soul because he
doesn't show you his own letters? My dear, no man who was not born a
_our_ would show a woman's letters to his wife. Surely you wish your
hero to know the A, B, C of gentle manners! I am delighted you are going
into the world; but if you only go as "a duty" I am afraid the results
won't be sunshiny. "Duty" is such a _very_ disagreeable thing. It always
rolls itself up like a hedgehog, with all its prickles out, turning
forever round and round on the axle of its own self-admiration. If you
go to Trouville, and wherever else you do go, _en martyr_, my dear, you
will give the mischievous duchess, if she