I was interrupted at the first word of my letter, and this interruption prevented me from writing to you. Thank the good Lord for this, for the weather is fine to-day, and my ill-humour has become mollified to such an extent that I no longer wish to write to you save in a style of honey and sugar. I shall not quarrel with you, therefore, about thirty or forty passages in your last letter, which gave me a terrible shock, and which I am quite willing to forget. I forgive you, and with so much the more pleasure because I really believe that, in spite of my wrath, I like you better when you are pouting than in any other mood. One passage in your letter made me laugh all by myself for ten minutes. You tell me short and sweet: “My love is promised” and thus you bring on the great knock-down blow without any preliminary skirmishes. You say you are engaged for life as you would say, “I am engaged for the quadrille.” Very well. I have apparently employed my time to advantage in discussing with you questions of love, marriage, and the like; you are still on the point of believing, or at least of saying, that when you are told to love a certain gentleman, you love him. Have you promised by a contract signed before a notary, or on vignetted paper? When I was a school-boy I received once from a seamstress a note surmounted by two hearts aflame, united as follows: [Illustration: image of two parallel hearts pierced by an arrow]; there was, besides, a declaration of the most affectionate kind. My teacher first confiscated my letter, and then locked me in my room. The object of this budding passion proceeded to console herself with my cruel teacher.