ns, and imitating
them. He is on friendly terms with insects, and never wearies of
admiring them. Everything which is on a minute scale interests them.
Armand is beginning to ask the "why" of everything he sees. He has come
to ask what I am saying to his godmother, whom he looks on as a fairy.
Strange how children hit the mark!

Alas! my sweet, I would not sadden you with the tale of my joys. Let me
give you some notion of your godson's character. The other day we were
followed by a poor man begging--beggars soon find out that a mother with
her child at her side can't resist them. Armand has no idea what hunger
is, and money is a sealed book to him; but I have just bought him a
trumpet which had long been the object of his desires. He held it out to
the old man with a kingly air, saying:

"Here, take this!"

What joy the world can give would compare with such a moment?

"May I keep it?" said the poor man to me. "I too, madame, have had
children," he added, hardly noticing the money I put into his hand.

I shudder when I think that Armand must go to school, and that I have
only three years and a half more to keep him by me. The flowers that
blossom in his sunny childhood will fall before the scythe of a public
school system; his gracious ways and bewitching candor will lose their
spontaneity. They will cut the curls that I have brushed and smoothed
and kissed so often! What will they do with the thinking being that is
Armand?

And what of you? You tell me nothing of your life. Are you still in
love with Felipe? For, as regards the Saracen, I have no uneasiness.
Good-bye; Nais has just had a tumble, and if I run on like this, my
letter will become a volume.

XLVI. MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE 1829.

My sweet, tender Renee, you will have learned from the papers the
terrible calamity which has overwhelmed me. I have not been able to
write you even a word. For twenty days I never left his bedside; I
received his last breath and closed his eyes; I kept holy watch over him
with the priests and repeated the prayers for the dead. The cruel pangs
I suffered were accepted by me as a rightful punishment; and yet, when
I saw on his calm lips the smile which was his last farewell to me, how
was it possible to believe that I had caused his death!

Be it so or not, he is gone, and I am left. To you, who have known us
both so well, what more need I say? These words contain all. Oh! I would
give my share