lashes. I don't think we shall ever encounter
that beautiful young vision again, and I sincerely hope that we shall be
spared others of his kind, but one never knows what will happen with an
American girl at the helm. I told you also of our doings among the
chateaux. Altogether, that was an idyllic time; and still, though I have
been grumbling to you just now, when I can shut my eyes to to-morrow, I
haven't much fault to find with Fate. You remember that weird story of
Hawthorne's, about the man who walked out of his own house one morning,
took lodgings in a neighbouring street, disguised himself, and watched
for years the agony of his wife, who gave him up for dead? At last the
desire for home came over him again; he knocked at his own door and went
in; there the story ends.

My position is like that of Hawthorne's hero, without the tragedy. When
shall I return to my own home? I cannot tell. I have stepped out of my
own sphere into another, and sometimes I have an odd sense of
detachment, as if I were floating in a void. It is only when I am
writing to you or when I get letters from the world I have left that I
feel the link which unites me with the past. Since I left Paris I have
had only four letters from my world, which have fallen into Brown's
world like strange reminders of another existence. I have had your own
welcome words, and a letter from my mother at Cannes (I gave her my
address at Poitiers) telling me of the arrival there of Jabez Barrow
with his "one fair daughter," and urging me to haste. As if I should
rush from the society of the Goddess in the car to the opulent charms
(in both senses) of Miss Barrow! It appears that Jabez the Rich does not
care for Cannes, but sighs for Italy, and that my mother has promised to
"personally conduct" them to Rome. She wants me to reach Cannes before
they leave, or if that's impossible, to abandon my car and follow by
rail to Rome, lest I "miss this great chance." I am not surprised at
this move. My dear mother, when the travelling fit is upon her, is
nothing if not erratic. She is here to-day, and, having seen the charms
of another place advertised on a poster, is gone to-morrow.

On getting this letter a happy inspiration came into my mind. It had
been the more or less vague intention of the Goddess, after inspecting
the castles of the Loire, to steer for Lyons, arriving at Nice by way of
Grenoble. I offered the wily suggestion, however, that it would make a
more va