I apologise, my dear Louis, for having left you a month without a letter from me, as you reproach me somewhat severely. You are not afraid, I should hope, that my friendship for you has cooled. The real cause of my silence is that I have had nothing to tell you. The even tenor of my existence permits only of daily repetitions of the same very simple events. My affections being divided between my harem and my uncle Barbassou, I revel in the tranquillity of the fields and woods, which afford to my mind that quiet freedom which is always more or less disturbed by the excited atmosphere of city life. Do not imagine, however, that we have been living like monastics, disdaining all worldly distractions: the governor is not the man to lead the existence of a Carthusian monk. He is as much on horseback as on foot. In the daytime we make hunting excursions; he visits his "god-children" and my estates: you may rely upon it, I have got an active steward in _him_! In the evening we receive our friends at the chateau--the vicar, the Morands, father and son, and, twice a week, the notary. We play whist at penny points, and very lively games of piquet--only the latter not so often, as my uncle cheats at it. About eleven o'clock the carriages are got ready to take these people home. I then accompany my uncle to his room, and we talk over business matters, and about my _fiancee_; for, of course, my marriage with his "god-daughter" is an understood thing, and we have not even a notion of discussing the question. Finally, when he gets sleepy, he goes to bed, and I go off to El-Nouzha. Besides these occupations we have another very serious one, namely, rummaging among the mass of curios which he heaped up together in the lumber-room of the chateau. "Ah, Andre!" my uncle said to me one day, with the reproachful accent of a faithful steward, "you have a lot of fine things up there which you are very foolish to leave in that lumber-hole. If I were you, I would have them all out!" "Let us get them all out then at once, uncle," I answered. Thereupon we set to work sorting them out, and you have no idea of the things we found--valuable paintings, works of art, rare old furniture, and arms of all countries. You will see what a museum they constitute, if you make an excursion down here, as you have promised. Really, for an artist of your genius, this alone would be worth the journey. We also pay visits at the two neighbouring chateaux of the Montanbecs and the Camboulions; but confine ourselves strictly to the customary conventionalities between neighbours, the female element which we encounter at these places belonging, as my uncle puts it, to the very lowest zoological order of beings.