aster.

I am almost too happy. I live in a story of fairies, and I ask myself,
is it too good to last?

You know, cherie, how I loved always to read the books of romance, when
we could hide them from our kind Sisters, who think it wrong for the
young girls to fill their heads with such thoughts till after the
marriage. Since I have left the dear convent, I have read earnestly in
journals the writings of critics who live by having opinions about other
people. I see by them that romance is not truth. It is only the dull
things which are real. Yet for you and me, life is now running like the
stories at which these critics laugh the most. That is why I ask myself,
"Can such things go on?" For it seems that critics must know better than
me (or should I say "I?"). Perhaps they have reason. Perhaps we shall
end in a monotony of grayness like the books these wise men and women
praise for "the realism." Or we shall fall down, down, in tragedy?--for
that, it seems, can also be true to life; only just the _happy_ things
are not true. Yet at present let us live joyously for a little while as
in one of those dear books we read in secret at school: books of romance
and even of mystery.

For instance, look at what you write me of your family, which mixes
itself so strangely with my experience. But no, surely it _cannot_ be
that the handsome new American cousin with much money, who visited your
mother's chateau in your vacance of Easter, is anything to _our_
Monsieur Moncourt. It is only a coincidence that his name shall be
Marcel, and that Marcel is a name existing with the de Moncourt men
since the centuries. I regret almost that I have written you of our
Marcel Moncourt just at the moment when this marvellous cousin has
jumped into your life; but, even if there is a connection, you must not
comprehend it badly. Do not for an instant picture that our Monsieur
Moncourt is a _cook_. But, what a _word_ for him! He is a real
Personage. He is a Celebrity. All the world is proud to speak with him,
and he can have as much money as he wants. That is why it is so curious
he should come to _us_ for a little nothing at all, just through the
influence of Mr. Storm, which also I do not understand. But, as I tell
you, if there is a cousinhood or an unclehood, it is not a thing for
shame. The young Marcel will of course tell Madame la Marquise
everything the moment he passes so far as to ask for you. And then, if
he is so rich and so beau, and h