like lightning at any
rousing thought.

Like all men of strong character and powerful mind, he has an admirable
temper; its evenness would surprise you, as it did me. I have listened
to the tale of many a woman's home troubles; I have heard of the moods
and depression of men dissatisfied with themselves, who either won't get
old or age ungracefully, men who carry about through life the rankling
memory of some youthful excess, whose veins run poison and whose eyes
are never frankly happy, men who cloak suspicion under bad temper, and
make their women pay for an hour's peace by a morning of annoyance, who
take vengeance on us for a beauty which is hateful to them because they
have ceased themselves to be attractive,--all these are horrors unknown
to youth. They are the penalty of unequal unions. Oh! my dear, whatever
you do, don't marry Athenais to an old man!

But his smile--how I feast on it! A smile which is always there, yet
always fresh through the play of subtle fancy, a speaking smile which
makes of the lips a storehouse for thoughts of love and unspoken
gratitude, a smile which links present joys to past. For nothing is
allowed to drop out of our common life. The smallest works of nature
have become part and parcel of our joy. In these delightful woods
everything is alive and eloquent of ourselves. An old moss-grown oak,
near the woodsman's house on the roadside, reminds us how we sat there,
wearied, under its shade, while Gaston taught me about the mosses at our
feet and told me their story, till, gradually ascending from science to
science, we touched the very confines of creation.

There is something so kindred in our minds that they seem to me like
two editions of the same book. You see what a literary tendency I have
developed! We both have the habit, or the gift, of looking at every
subject broadly, of taking in all its points of view, and the proof we
are constantly giving ourselves of the singleness of our inward vision
is an ever-new pleasure. We have actually come to look on this community
of mind as a pledge of love; and if it ever failed us, it would mean as
much to us as would a breach of fidelity in an ordinary home.

My life, full as it is of pleasures, would seem to you, nevertheless,
extremely laborious. To begin with, my dear, you must know that
Louise-Armande-Marie de Chaulieu does her own room. I could not bear
that a hired menial, some woman or girl from the outside, should become
initiate