As for your Aunt’s quotation, “Men are April when they woo, December when they wed,” why, that is easily explained. It means that fires burn more hotly in the cold month and more steadily than in flowery April. Peppi and I had all yesterday evening together, and a very pleasant time of it, too. I went over to his studio and found him. He made a delightful picture, frowzy-haired but handsome in his bright blue blouse, with his pallet in his hand, and his pet white goose following him about, lifting her yellow beak to be fed, and spreading her snowy wings. He explained he had purchased her for her feathery plumage to help him in a picture he was painting of an angel. We dined at the Cambrinus in the garden with colored lights where it was cool and pretty. And then afterwards I took him to the circus. We meet there almost every night. It is an epidemic here. Oh, a most excellent circus that puts on a lot of style! The band blared out the same old music, marches for the athletes to come stalking in by and polkas to mark time for the horses, and a really most beautiful creature, she looks a little like Mona Lisa, performed on the trapeze--it was great, great fun. As I can’t go up to Paris, isn’t it possible for you to sail home by way of Naples so I can get a glimpse of you? * * * * * POLLY TO A. D. _Leicestershire, October._ On coming back from a drive today, dear, we saw some gypsies camped by the roadside, so we stopped and gave them the remains of our picnic luncheon. They invited us into their tents and told our fortunes. An old gypsy declared the cards said a gray-eyed woman with a mysterious smile might give me trouble and that a handsome man in the south would disappoint me. Now what do you think of that? Say to Peppi that I hope he is not falling in love with that trapeze girl for Aunt wouldn’t like it. But how about you? You ask if I want you to stop writing sweet things to me,--why, of course, I don’t. Every girl likes love letters. But you needn’t feel obliged to, you know. We have a few days with the Prince in Paris, then sail for home, sweet home. Would we go home by way of Italy, you ask! Well, I don’t plan to run all over the country after a certain young man. If he wants to see me, he can come to Paris, and if he doesn’t, he needn’t! Now I can see you laugh, but I don’t care! * * * * * A. D. TO POLLY _Rome, October._ I beg to thank you, dear Miss Polly, for your gypsy fortune-telling letter. Did the old gypsy mention by chance a blond Russian Prince? It was most kind of you to think of me at all, so far away in hot Rome, and indeed your letter brought a cool, refreshing air to temper the _sirocco_ and hot sun here. It has been a trying summer in Rome, and if it hadn’t been for some happy excursions I have been able to make to Florence and Venice and into the country and to the circus, I fear I should have found it unbearable.