I could not be safe
from somebody, who, in her goodnature and my illfortune, must come and
sit by me--and when my letter was come--'why wouldn't I read it? What
wonderful politeness on my part.' She would not and could not consent
to keep me from reading my letter. She would stand up by the fire
rather.

No, no, three times no. Brummel got into the carriage before the
Regent, ... (didn't he?) but I persisted in not reading my letter in
the presence of my friend. A notice on my punctiliousness may be put
down to-night in her 'private diary.' I kept the letter in my hand and
only read it with those sapient ends of the fingers which the
mesmerists make so much ado about, and which really did seem to touch
a little of what was inside. Not _all_, however, happily for me! Or my
friend would have seen in my eyes what _they_ did not see.

May God bless you! Did I ever say that I had an objection to read the
verses at six years old--or see the drawings either? I am reasonable,
you observe! Only, 'Pauline,' I must have _some day_--why not without
the emendations? But if you insist on them, I will agree to wait a
little--if you promise _at last_ to let me see the book, which I will
not show. Some day, then! you shall not be vexed nor hurried for the
day--some day. Am I not generous? And _I_ was 'precocious' too, and
used to make rhymes over my bread and milk when I was nearly a baby
... only really it was mere echo-verse, that of mine, and had nothing
of mark or of indication, such as I do not doubt that yours had. I
used to write of virtue with a large 'V,' and 'Oh Muse' with a harp,
and things of that sort. At nine years old I wrote what I called 'an
epic'--and at ten, various tragedies, French and English, which we
used to act in the nursery. There was a French 'hexameter' tragedy on
the subject of Regulus--but I cannot even smile to think of it now,
there are so many grave memories--which time has made grave--hung
around it. How I remember sitting in 'my house under the sideboard,'
in the dining-room, concocting one of the soliloquies beginning

Que suis je? autrefois un general Remain:
Maintenant esclave de Carthage je souffre en vain.

Poor Regulus!--Can't you conceive how fine it must have been
altogether? And these were my 'maturer works,' you are to understand,
... and 'the moon was bright at ten o'clock at night' years before. As
to the gods and goddesses, I believed in them all quite seriously, and
reconcil