ld be pleased to receive a letter from
me, and I hope you will be. You need not answer this if you do not
care to do so. You will notice, 'par parenthese', that I take this
opportunity of saying you and not thou to you. It is easier to
change the familiar mode of address in writing than in speaking, and
when we meet again the habit will have become confirmed. But, as I
write, it will require great attention, and I can not promise to
keep to it to the end. Half an hour's chat with an old friend will
also help me to pass the time, which I own seems rather long, as it
is passed by your sweet, dear mother and myself at Lizerolles. Oh,
if you were only here it would be different! In the first place,
we should talk less of a certain Fred, which would be one great
advantage. You must know that you are the subject of our discourse
from morning to night; we talk only of the dangers of the seas, the
future prospects of a seaman, and all the rest of it. If the wind
is a little higher than usual, your mother begins to cry; she is
sure you are battling with a tempest. If any fishing-boat is
wrecked, we talk of nothing but shipwrecks; and I am asked to join
in another novena, in addition to those with which we must have
already wearied Notre Dame de Treport. Every evening we spread out
the map: 'See, Jacqueline, he must be here now--no, he is almost
there,' and lines of red ink are traced from one port to another,
and little crosses are made to show the places where we hope you
will get your letters--'Poor boy, poor, dear boy!' In short,
notwithstanding all the affectionate interest I take in you, this is
sometimes too much for me. In fact, I think I must be very fond of
thee not to have grown positively to hate thee for all this fuss.
There! In this last sentence, instead of saying you, I have said
thee! That ought to gild the pill for you!

"We do not go very frequently to visit Treport, except to invoke for
you the protection of Heaven, and I like it just as well, for since
the last fortnight in September, which was very rainy, the beach is
dismal--so different from what it was in the summer. The town looks
gloomy under a cloudy sky with its blackened old brick houses! We
are better off at Lizerolles, whose autumnal beauties you know so
well that I will say nothing about them.--Oh, Fred, how often I
regret that I am not a bo