I am reading much today, trying to forget you. The language in the French books is very instructive to the mind but destructive to the moral. The vice of the French or the bragging virtue of the English--which is better? I finish this letter by begging you to walk with me again in the moonlight. Send me a line if you will. I say goodbye till tonight. BORIS. P.S. You have given me very much pleasure. It is sufficient for me to see and hear you. It make me pairfectly happy just so. I find you very charming. How shall I say it--like or love you? In French they have only the one word, and the womans understand what they want. How you think? I like lively American girl, not afraid of anything, not even of wicked man. * * * * * PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY _Steamship Cleopatra,_ _The following day._ Dear Mademoiselle Avis, Did you leave me last night when I try to join you on deck because you not like my letter or was it my foreign gesticulations which frightened you or you find my funs stupid? You angry when I kiss your hands in the moonlight perhaps? But why you not tell me your name and where you live when home? You said me you just American girl called Polly the Pagan, and you would not interest me,--but you do interest me. Please do not be so jingoist. Is not this word one of your Franklin’s? Ah! I believe you disappear because it is that we sail in a magic boat among the islands of the gods over water that is--what you call him--fairy water which is bewitched, and at sunset reflect the brilliant plumage of the phoenix and at night the silver of the lady moon. Maybe men are stupid and women wicked? Was it possible to be more bad as Eve and more dull as Adam? I say you goodbye, naughty girl. BORIS. * * * * * POLLY’S JOURNAL CONTINUED _Rome, A week later._ I’m so glad we’re going to stay here in Rome for a while! Aunt has taken the upper floor of an old palace, and we’re all nicely settled for the spring. Up on the roof is our little terrace garden, so tiny but so perfect, with its stone paths and its borders of pussy-faced pansies and violets. In the corners are huge earthen jars bubbling over with pink roses, and the trellis to one side is covered with big-leaved vines where Cæsar, the mockingbird, hangs in his yellow wicker cage in the shade and makes joyful noises. The sky is always so blue and the sun so warm and golden up there, and yet, it makes you cool just to let your eyes wander off to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The dome of St. Peter’s is not far off, and the Vatican--I wonder what plans the clever old Pope is devising over there.