le of whom I know
nothing; but perhaps it is my ignorance on many subjects which prevents
me from appreciating it, as I saw that most men and women took a lively
pleasure in certain remarks, whether falling from their own lips or
those of others. Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve.
It is a perfect maze of intrigue. Yet I am fairly quick of sight and
hearing, and as to my wits, Mlle. de Maucombe does not need to be told!

I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness, and in all
innocence began describing my sensations to my mother, who was with me.
She checked me with the warning that I must never say such things to any
one but her.

"My dear child," she added, "it needs as much tact to know when to be
silent as when to speak."

This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensations which ought
to be concealed from every one, not excepting perhaps even a mother. At
a glance I measured the vast field of feminine duplicity. I can assure
you, sweetheart, that we, in our unabashed simplicity, would pass for
two very wide-awake little scandal-mongers. What lessons may be conveyed
in a finger on the lips, in a word, a look! All in a moment I was seized
with excessive shyness. What! may I never again speak of the natural
pleasure I feel in the exercise of dancing? "How then," I said to
myself, "about the deeper feelings?"

I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock produced by
this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with the harsh laws
of society. Already the highway hedges are flecked with my white wool!
Farewell, beloved.

V. RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU October.

How deeply your letter moved me; above all, when I compare our widely
different destinies! How brilliant is the world you are entering, how
peaceful the retreat where I shall end my modest career!

In the Castle of Maucombe, which is so well known to you by description
that I shall say no more of it, I found my room almost exactly as I
left it; only now I can enjoy the splendid view it gives of the Gemenos
valley, which my childish eyes used to see without comprehending. A
fortnight after my arrival, my father and mother took me, along with my
two brothers, to dine with one of our neighbors, M. de l'Estorade,
an old gentleman of good family, who has made himself rich, after the
provincial fashion, by scraping and paring.

M. de l'Estorade was unable to save his only son from the cl