is precisely this great obligation I am now under which
makes--does it not, I appeal to you?--a most deplorable complication.

In the first place, about thanking him. If I do that, I encourage him,
and he would certainly take advantage of it to change the character of
our present intercourse. But if I pass him without notice--think of it!
a mother--a mother who owes him the life of her daughter, to pretend not
to see him! to pass him without a single word of gratitude!

That, however, is the intolerable alternative in which I find myself
placed, and you can now see how much I need the counsels of your
experience. What can I do to break the unpleasant habit this man has
taken of being my shadow? How shall I thank him without encouraging him?
or not thank him without incurring self-reproach?

Those are the problems submitted to your wisdom. If you will do me
the kindness to solve them--and I know no one so capable--I shall add
gratitude to all the other affectionate sentiments which, as you know, I
have so long felt for you.

III. THE COMTE DE L'ESTORADE TO MONSIEUR MARIE-GASTON

Paris, February, 1839.

Perhaps, my dear Monsieur Gaston, the public journals will have told you
before this letter can arrive of the duel fought yesterday between your
friend Monsieur Dorlange and the Duc de Rhetore. But the papers, while
announcing the fact as a piece of news, are debarred by custom and
propriety from inferring the motives of a quarrel, and therefore they
will only excite your curiosity without satisfying it.

I have, fortunately, heard from a very good source, all the details of
the affair, and I hasten to transmit them to you; they are, I think, of
a nature to interest you to the highest degree.

Three days ago, that is to say on the very evening of the day when I
paid my visit to Monsieur Dorlange, the Duc de Rhetore occupied a stall
at the Opera-house. Next to him sat Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who has
recently returned from a diplomatic mission which kept him out of France
for several years. During the entr'acte these gentlemen did not leave
their seats to walk about the foyer; but, as is often done, they stood
up, with their backs to the stage, facing the audience and consequently
Monsieur Dorlange, who was seated directly behind them, seeming to
be absorbed in an evening newspaper. There had been that day a very
scandalous, or what is called a very interesting, session of the Chamber
of deputies.

The conv