His very foot has music in 't, As he comes up the stairs. "How oft has my heart danced to the sound of that music! And shall I see his face again? And shall I hear him speak "Gracious Heaven! hear and answer my daily petition, by banishing all my grief. "I am sometimes quite discouraged from writing. So many vessels are taken that there is little chance of a letter's reaching your hands. That I meet with so few returns is a circumstance that lies heavy at my heart. If this finds its way to you, it will go by the _Alliance_. By her I have written before. She has not yet sailed, and I love to amuse myself with my pen, and pour out some of the tender sentiments of a heart overflowing with affection, not for the eye of a cruel enemy, who, no doubt, would ridicule every humane and social sentiment, long ago grown callous to the finer sensibilities, but for the sympathetic heart that beats in unison with "PORTIA'S." John replies to this: "Dr. J. is transcribing your Scotch song, which is a charming one. Oh, my leaping heart! "I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman. "What an offense have I committed! A woman! "I shall soon make it up. I think women better than men, in general, and I know that you can keep a secret as well as any man whatever. But the world don't know this. Therefore if I were to write my sentiments to you, and the letter should be caught and hitched into a newspaper, the world would say I was not to be trusted with a secret." To us, it need be no secret that there were divisions in the American Legation at Paris. Franklin was at odds with his colleagues, who seem to have been more hindrance than help to him. Moreover, Congress, in the excitement of the treaty, forgot, for a time, all about John Adams and his mission. In short, he came too late for the fair, found no orders, and little to do, save talk with the old philosopher and the Comte de Vergennes. Now and then the diary gives us a sidelight on Franklin. "Dr. Franklin, upon my saying the other day that I fancied he did not exercise so much as he was wont, answered, 'Yes, I walk a league every day in my chamber; I walk quick, and for an hour, so that I go a league; I make a point of religion of it.' I replied, 'That as the commandment, "thou shalt not kill," forbids a man to kill himself as well as his neighbor, it was manifestly a breach of the sixth commandment not to exercise; so that he might easily prove it to be a religious point.'" John Adams could not be idle. "I cannot eat pensions and sinecures," he writes: "they would stick in my throat." He was in no mood to follow Franklin's advice and wait quietly for further orders. There was nothing for him to do, and he would go home in the first available ship. Accordingly, on June 17th, 1779, he sailed on the _Sensible_, with son John beside him, and that episode was closed.