nd
Raymond. This fact certainly ought to make you decide to share our
solitude. Our friend is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but
one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead
of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead
of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which
the heart is not sacrificed to the intellect; where the subtlety of a
diplomate is united to the ingenuousness of a child.

Since your ideal has fled, are not all places alike to you? Then why
should you not come to me, to Richeport, but a step from Pont de l'Arch?

I am perched upon the bank of the river, in a strange old building,
which I know will please you. It is an old abbey half in ruins, in which
is enshrined a dwelling, with many windows at regular intrevals, and is
surmounted by a slate roof and chimneys of all sizes. It is built of
hewn stone, that time has covered with its gray leprosy, and the general
effect, looking through the avenue of grand old trees, is fine. Here my
mother dwells. Profiting by the walls and the half-fallen towers of the
old enclosure, for the abbey was fortified to resist the Norman
invasions, she has made upon the brow of the hill a garden terrace
filled with roses, myrtles and orange trees, while the green boxes
surrounding them replace the old battlements. In this quarter of the old
domain, I have not interfered with any of these womanly fancies.

She has collected around her all manner of pretty rusticities; all the
comfortable elegancies she could imagine. I have not opposed any system
of hot-air stoves, nor the upholstering of the rooms, nor objected to
mahogany and ebony, wedgwood ware, china in blue designs, and English
plate. For this is the way that middle-aged, and in fact, all reasonable
people live.

For myself, I have reserved the refectory and library of the brave
monks, that is, all that overlooks the river. I have not permitted the
least repairing of the walls, which present the complete flora of the
native wild flowers. An arched door, closed by old boards covered with a
remnant of red paint, and opening on the bank, serves me as a private
entrance. A ferry worked by a rope and pulley establishes communication
with an island opposite the abbey, which is verdant with a mass of
osiers, elder bushes and willows. It is here also that my fleet of boats
is moored.

Seen from without, nothing would indicate a human habita