English call "things"--off love, poverty, crime,
religion and the rest of it. Yes, the first doctor that we had when she
was carried off the ship at Havre assured me that this must be done.
Good God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, or is there a
freemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth?... That is
what makes me think of that fellow Peire Vidal.

Because, of course, his story is culture and I had to head her towards
culture and at the same time it's so funny and she hadn't got to laugh,
and it's so full of love and she wasn't to think of love. Do you know
the story? Las Tours of the Four Castles had for chatelaine Blanche
Somebody-or-other who was called as a term of commendation, La
Louve--the She-Wolf. And Peire Vidal the Troubadour paid his court to
La Louve. And she wouldn't have anything to do with him. So, out of
compliment to her--the things people do when they're in love!--he
dressed himself up in wolfskins and went up into the Black Mountains.
And the shepherds of the Montagne Noire and their dogs mistook him for
a wolf and he was torn with the fangs and beaten with clubs. So they
carried him back to Las Tours and La Louve wasn't at all impressed. They
polished him up and her husband remonstrated seriously with her. Vidal
was, you see, a great poet and it was not proper to treat a great poet
with indifference.

So Peire Vidal declared himself Emperor of Jerusalem or somewhere
and the husband had to kneel down and kiss his feet though La Louve
wouldn't. And Peire set sail in a rowing boat with four companions to
redeem the Holy Sepulchre. And they struck on a rock somewhere, and,
at great expense, the husband had to fit out an expedition to fetch him
back. And Peire Vidal fell all over the Lady's bed while the husband,
who was a most ferocious warrior, remonstrated some more about the
courtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louve was the more
ferocious of the two. Anyhow, that is all that came of it. Isn't that a
story?

You haven't an idea of the queer old-fashionedness of Florence's
aunts--the Misses Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle. An extraordinarily
lovable man, that Uncle John. Thin, gentle, and with a "heart" that made
his life very much what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't reside
at Stamford; his home was in Waterbury where the watches come from. He
had a factory there which, in our queer American way, would change
its functions almost from year to year.