months' time, and perhaps he will go without you. Perhaps he would be happier at Lanciano than at Coombe, and he would have all his own people; but he would want the _petits théâtres_ all the same. You are not wise, my poor pet; you should make him feel that you are one with his pleasures, not, that you and his pleasures are enemies. But it is no use to instil wisdom into you: you are very young, and very much in love. You look on all the natural distractions which he inclines to as so many rivals. So they may be; but _we don't beat our rivals by abusing them_. The really wise way is to tacitly show that we can be more attractive than they: if we cannot be so, we may sulk or sigh as we will, we shall be vanquished by them. You will think me very preachy-preachy, and perhaps you will throw me in the fire unread; but I must say just this much more. Dear, you are in love with Love, but underneath Love there is a real man, and real men are far from ideal creatures. Now, it is the real man that you want to consider, to humor, to study. If the real man be pleased, Love will take care of himself; whereas, if you bore the real man, Love will fly away. If you had been wise, my poor pet, I repeat, you would have found nothing so delightful as Judic and Chaumont, and you would have declared that the asphalt excelled all the Alps in the world. He does not love you the less because he wants to be _dans le mouvement_, to hear what other men are saying, and to smoke his cigar among his fellow-creatures. * * * * * _From, the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Hôtel des Roches Noires, Trouville, France, to the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, Luton, Bedfordshire, England._