As to my person and as to my “belongings,” as the Normans say, make yourself easy. I am at least as handsome as the little girl (ignorantly happy) on whom your eyes chanced to light during your visit to Havre; and I do not call myself poverty-stricken, although ten sons of peers may not accompany me on my walks. I have seen the humiliating comedy of the heiress sought for her millions played on my account. In short, make no attempt, even on a wager, to reach me. Alas! though free as air, I am watched and guarded,--by myself, in the first place, and secondly, by people of nerve and courage who would not hesitate to put a knife in your heart if you tried to penetrate my retreat. I do not say this to excite your courage or stimulate your curiosity; I believe I have no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me. I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of your first sermon. Will you have a confession? I said to myself when I saw you so distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne (whose improvisations bore me dreadfully), that in all probability dozes of Muses had already led you, rashly curious, into their valleys, and begged you to taste the fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus. Oh! you are perfectly safe with me, my friend; I may love poetry, but I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my stockings are, and will remain, immaculately white. You shall not be pestered with the “Flowers of my Heart” in one or more volumes. And, finally, should it ever happen that I say to you the word “Come!” you will not find--you know it now--an old maid, no, nor a poor and ugly one. Ah! my friend, if you only knew how I regret that you came to Havre! You have lowered the charm of what you call my romance. God alone knew the treasure I was reserving for the man noble enough, and trusting enough, and perspicacious enough to come--having faith in my letters, having penetrated step by step into the depths of my heart--to come to our first meeting with the simplicity of a child: for that was what I dreamed to be the innocence of a man of genius. And now you have spoiled my treasure! But I forgive you; you live in Paris and, as you say, there is always a man within a poet. Because I tell you this will you think me some little girl who cultivates a garden-full of illusions? You, who are witty and wise, have you not guessed that when Mademoiselle d’Este received your pedantic lesson she said to herself: “No, dear poet, my first letter was not the pebble which a vagabond child flings about the highway to frighten the owner of the adjacent fruit-trees, but a net carefully and prudently thrown by a fisherman seated on a rock above the sea, hoping and expecting a miraculous draught.”