row such a lasting gloom over
the whole incident that one could never fall back upon it in memory
without deep sorrow; but men are so essentially selfish I don't think
that this consideration would weigh with him.

"Some malicious people here circulated a story that he had made me an
offer of marriage, and that I had accepted it. Just as they said some
months ago that I had gone over to Rome, and here I am still, as the
police-sheet calls me, a 'Widow and a Protestant.' My character for
eccentricity exposes me naturally to these kinds of scandal; but, on the
other hand, it saves me from the trouble of refuting or denying them.
So that I shall take no notice whatever either of my conversion or my
marriage, and the dear world--never ill-natured when it is useless--will
at last accept the fact, small and insignificant though it be, just as
creditors take half a crown in the pound after a bankruptcy.

"And now, dearest, is it too soon, is it too importunate, or is it too
indelicate to tell your brother that, though I'm the most ethereal
of creatures, I require to eat occasionally, and that, though I am
continually reproved for the lowness of my dresses, I still do wear some
clothes. In a word, dearest, I am in dire poverty, and to give me
simply a thousand a year is to say, be a casual pauper. No one--my worst
enemy--and I suppose I have a few who hate and would despitefully use
me--can say I am extravagant. The necessaries of life, as they are
called, are the costly things, and these are what I can perfectly well
dispense with. I want its elegancies, its refinements, and these one
has so cheaply. What, for instance, is the cost of the bouquet on your
dinner-table? Certainly not more than one of your entrees; and it is
infinitely more charming and more pleasure-giving. My coffee costs me no
more out of Sevres than out of a white mug with a lip like a milk-pail;
and will you tell me that the Mocha is the same in the one as the other?
What I want is that life should be picturesque, that its elegancies
should so surround one that its coarser, grosser elements be kept out of
sight; and this is a cheap philosophy. My little villa here--and nothing
can be smaller--affords it; but come and see dearest--that is the true
way--come and see how I live. If ever there was an existence of simple
pleasures it is mine. I never receive in the morning--I study. I either
read improving books--I 'll show you some of them--or I converse with
M