oblest among women, such a bride might
indeed raise a man to giddy heights of bliss. Her gentle ways are
seasoned with wit, her love comes with an ever-fresh grace and charm;
her mind is well informed and quick to understand; in person, she is
fair and lovely, with a rounded slimness, as though Raphael and Rubens
had conspired to create a woman! I do not know whether I could have
worshiped with such fervor at the shrine of a dark beauty; a brunette
always strikes me as an unfinished boy. She is a widow, childless, and
twenty-seven years of age. Though brimful of life and energy, she has
her moods also of dreamy melancholy. These rare gifts go with a proud
aristocratic bearing; she has a fine presence.

She belongs to one of those old families who make a fetich of rank, yet
loves me enough to ignore the misfortune of my birth. Our secret passion
is now of long standing; we have made trial, each of the other, and find
that in the matter of jealousy we are twin spirits; our thoughts are the
reverberation of the same thunderclap. We both love for the first time,
and this bewitching springtime has filled its days for us with all the
images of delight that fancy can paint in laughing, sweet, or musing
mood. Our path has been strewn with the flowers of tender imaginings.
Each hour brought its own wealth, and when we parted, it was to put our
thoughts in verse. Not for a moment did I harbor the idea of sullying
the brightness of such a time by giving the rein to sensual passion,
however it might chafe within. She was a widow and free; intuitively,
she realized all the homage implied in this constant self-restraint,
which often moved her to tears. Can you not read in this, my friend, a
soul of noble temper? In mutual fear we shunned even the first kiss of
love.

"We have each a wrong to reproach ourselves with," she said one day.

"Where is yours?" I asked.

"My marriage," was her reply.

Daniel, you are a giant among us and you love one of the most gifted
women of the aristocracy, which has produced my Armande; what need to
tell you more? Such an answer lays bare to you a woman's heart and all
the happiness which is in store for your friend, MARIE GASTON.

L. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER

Louise, can it be that, with all your knowledge of the deep-seated
mischief wrought by the indulgence of passion, even within the heart of
marriage, you are planning a life of wedded solitude? Having sacrificed
your firs