ten about that time, which came into my possession long
afterwards. It was her custom to write her letters first in a book, and
afterwards to copy them for posting. This she did that they might be an
impulse to her friendships and a record of her feelings.

ALIXE DUVARNEY TO LUCIE LOTBINIERE.

QUEBEC CITY, the 10th of May, 1756.

MY DEAR LUCIE: I wish I knew how to tell you all I have been thinking
since we parted at the door of the Ursulines a year ago. Then we were
going to meet again in a few weeks, and now twelve months have gone! How
have I spent them? Not wickedly, I hope, and yet sometimes I wonder if
Mere St. George would quite approve of me; for I have such wild spirits
now and then, and I shout and sing in the woods and along the river as
if I were a mad youngster home from school. But indeed, that is the
way I feel at times, though again I am so quiet that I am frightened of
myself. I am a hawk to-day and a mouse to-morrow, and fond of pleasure
all the time. Ah, what good days I have had with Juste! You remember him
before he went to Montreal? He is gay, full of fancies, as brave as can
be, and plays and sings well, but he is very hot-headed, and likes to
play the tyrant. We have some bad encounters now and then. But we
love each other better for it; he respects me, and he does not become
spoiled, as you will see when you come to us.

I have had no society yet. My mother thinks seventeen years too few
to warrant my going into the gay world. I wonder will my wings be any
stronger, will there be less danger of scorching them at twenty-six?
Years do not make us wise; one may be as wise at twenty as at fifty. And
they do not save us from the scorching. I know more than they guess how
cruel the world may be to the innocent as to--the other. One can not
live within sight of the Intendant's palace and the Chateau St. Louis
without learning many things; and, for myself, though I hunger for all
the joys of life, I do not fret because my mother holds me back from the
gay doings in the town. I have my long walks, my fishing and rowing, and
sometimes hunting, with Juste and my sweet sister Georgette, my drawing,
painting, music, and needlework, and my housework.

Yet I am not entirely happy, I do not know quite why. Do you ever feel
as if there were some sorrow far back in you, which now and then rushed
in and flooded your spirits, and then drew back, and you could not give
it a name? Well, that is the way with me.