I think I shall have everything to make me happy. In the first place, my fiancé is very musical, composes charming things, and plays delightfully on the piano; my future mother-in-law is a dear old lady, musical and universally talented; my future father-in-law is a _bona-fide_ American, a dear quixotic old gentleman who speaks the most awful French. Although he has lived in Paris for forty years, he has never conquered the pronunciation of the French language, but has invented a unique dialect of his own. Every word that can be pronounced in English he pronounces in English, as well as all numbers. For instance, a phrase such as _La guerre de mille huit cent quinze était une démonstration de la liberté nationale_ would sound like this: "La gur de 1815 (in English) était une demonstration (in English) de la liberty national." It is almost impossible to understand him; but he will read for hours unabashed, not only to us, the drowsy and inattentive members of his family, but to the most fastidious and illustrious Frenchmen. There are two brothers and a sweet little sister. I shall have a beautiful home, or rather homes, because they have not only a handsome hotel in Paris, but an ideal country place (Petit Val) and a villa in Dinard. Good-by. Greet all the united family from me, and tell them not to worry over my future, as you wrote they were doing. I have renounced forever the pomps and allurements of the stage, and I trust the leaves on the genealogical tree will cease their trembling, and that the Fays, my ancestors, will not trouble themselves to turn in their graves, as you threatened they would if I did anything to disgrace them. CHÂTEAU DE PETIT VAL, _June, 1862._ DEAREST A.,--I wish I could give you an idea of Petit Val and our life as lived by me. Petit Val is about twelve miles from Paris, and was built for the Marquis de Marigny, whose portrait still hangs in the salon--the brother of Madame de Pompadour--by the same architect who built and laid out the park of Petit Trianon. There is an avenue of tall poplar-trees leading from Petit Val straight to Choisy-le-Roi, where Madame de Pompadour lived, a distance of ten miles.