September has just come to an end; the rainy weather which precedes the equinox has cooled the atmosphere. The west wind whistles through the long galleries of the palace. I have left the ground floor for a more cosy and comfortable apartment. I am almost deafened with noise. Awhile ago the parrots, the peacocks, and the popinjays, showing their sagacity, and, no doubt, feeling the approaching change in temperature, all began to shriek at once in the most atrocious manner. Such a proof of their intelligence made me terribly nervous. Why is Nature so inconsistent in her gifts? Dazzling plumage, discordant voice! This is not all; frightened by the racket, the greyhounds began to bark furiously. Then the dwarfs came with whips and yells, and augmented the noise while trying to stop it. I have taken refuge here, but can still hear the infernal screaming of the parrots. All these charming accessories of the scenes that surround me are lovely to look at when they are in their proper place, but I do not care for "tableaux" that shriek. From animals let us pass to human beings; the transition will not be difficult, for the minds of my beautiful girls are not much more developed than the brains of the parrots and popinjays, and though sometimes they are as noisy as the latter, their screams have not the advantage of foretelling rainy or clear weather. Speaking of screams, I am sorry that Noémi and Daphné have had a quarrel, but the excessive violence of those good creatures is the result of their want of education. Nevertheless, and although I am tolerant, it seems to me that stabbing one's comrade in the arm is carrying things too far, so I have given Noémi a serious scolding. I strongly suspect Anathasia, the blonde, with her childish and innocent air, to be the cause of the quarrel, and to have slyly excited those two brave girls to fight each other like two fighting-cocks. To be sure, this was suggested to me by the wicked old Cypriote, and she detests everything that is young or pretty. Noémi, in fact, is growing more and more ill-tempered. The other day she slapped Chloë, my gardener, violently, Chloë, who has such white teeth and such black eyes. She beat her because she brought in the fruit too late, and so my dessert was behindhand. After all, Noémi has some good points, but she is deucedly irascible and fierce. One thing that astonishes me is the fact that these girls are completely insensible to the beauties of nature. Thanks to the Greek I learned at college, I am able to understand and speak modern Greek passably well, and I have often tried to awaken in these girls some poetic sentiment. All was in vain; nothing was ever more barbaric or uncultivated than their minds. With the exception of some Greek national songs, they know nothing at all. They can neither read nor write. Their rivalries, their jealousies, their calumnies, and a few exaggerated tales of Turkish cruelty, furnish the subjects of their usual conversation.