-in-law, "Have you really
forgotten her?" My husband, now become _my angel_, can't know
anything, I think, about sincere and simple love, for the words
made him wild with happiness. Still, I think the desire to put
Madame de Rochefide forever out of his mind led me too far. But
how could I help it? I love, and I am half a Portuguese,--for I am
much more like you, mamma, than like my father.

Calyste accepts all from me as spoilt children accept things, they
think it their right; he is an only child, I remember that. But,
between ourselves, I will not give my daughter (if I have any
daughters) to an only son. I see a variety of tyrants in an only
son. So, mamma, we have rather inverted our parts, and I am the
devoted half of the pair. There are dangers, I know, in devotion,
though we profit by it; we lose our dignity, for one thing. I feel
bound to tell you of the wreck of that semi-virtue. Dignity, after
all, is only a screen set up before pride, behind which we rage as
we please; but how could I help it? you were not here, and I saw a
gulf opening before me. Had I remained upon my dignity, I should
have won only the cold joys (or pains) of a sort of brotherhood
which would soon have drifted into indifference. What sort of
future might that have led to? My devotion has, I know, made me
Calyste's slave; but shall I regret it? We shall see.

As for the present, I am delighted with it. I love Calyste; I love
him absolutely, with the folly of a mother, who thinks that all
her son may do is right, even if he tyrannizes a trifle over her.

Guerande, May 15th.

Up to the present moment, dear mamma, I find marriage a delightful
affair, I can spend all my tenderness on the noblest of men whom a
foolish woman disdained for a fiddler,--for that woman evidently
was a fool, and a cold fool, the worst kind! I, in my legitimate
love, am charitable; I am curing his wounds while I lay my heart
open to incurable ones. Yes, the more I love Calyste, the more I
feel that I should die of grief if our present happiness ever
ceased.

I must tell you how the whole family and the circle which meets at
the hotel de Guenic adore me. They are all personages born under
tapestries of the highest warp; in fact, they seem to have stepped
from those old tapestries as if to prove that the impossible may
exist. Some day, when we are alone together, I will describe to
you my