mer_, for he can't say _c_ properly. You
will be quite delighted with him. He has got all his teeth, and eats
meat now like a big boy; he is all over the place, trotting about like
a little mouse; but I watch him all the time with anxious eyes, and it
makes me miserable that I cannot keep him by me when I am laid up. The
time is more than usually long with me, as the doctors consider some
special precautions necessary. Alas! my child, habit does not inure one
to child-bearing. There are the same old discomforts and misgivings.
However (don't show this to Felipe), this little girl takes after me,
and she may yet cut out your Armand.

My father thought Felipe looking very thin, and my dear pet also not
quite so blooming. Yet the Duc and Duchesse de Soria have gone; not a
loophole for jealousy is left! Is there any trouble which you are hiding
from me? Your letter is neither so long nor so full of loving thoughts
as usual. Is this only a whim of my dear whimsical friend?

I am running on too long. My nurse is angry with me for writing, and
Mlle. Athenais de l'Estorade wants her dinner. Farewell, then; write me
some nice long letters.

XLIII. MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE

For the first time in my life, my dear Renee, I have been alone and
crying. I was sitting under a willow, on a wooden bench by the side of
the long Chantepleurs marsh. The view there is charming, but it needs
some merry children to complete it, and I wait for you. I have been
married nearly three years, and no child! The thought of your quiver
full drove me to explore my heart.

And this is what I find there. "Oh! if I had to suffer a hundred-fold
what Renee suffered when my godson was born; if I had to see my child in
convulsions, even so would to God that I might have a cherub of my own,
like your Athenais!" I can see her from here in my mind's eye, and
I know she is beautiful as the day, for you tell me nothing about
her--that is just like my Renee! I believe you divine my trouble.

Each time my hopes are disappointed, I fall a prey for some days to the
blackest melancholy. Then I compose sad elegies. When shall I embroider
little caps and sew lace edgings to encircle a tiny head? When choose
the cambric for the baby-clothes? Shall I never hear baby lips shout
"Mamma," and have my dress pulled by a teasing despot whom my heart
adores? Are there to be no wheelmarks of a little carriage on the
gravel, no broken toys littered a