I lose myself again in trying to understand what is incomprehensible. As to you, my dear Olivia, you also amaze me by talking of _crimes_ and _horror_, and _flying from pole to pole_ to avoid a man because you have made him at last find out that he has a heart! You have done him the greatest possible service: it may preserve him perhaps from hanging himself next November--that month in which, according to Voltaire’s philosophical calendar, Englishmen always hang themselves, because the atmosphere is so thick, and their ennui so heavy. Lady Leonora, if she really loves her husband, ought to be infinitely obliged to you for averting this danger. As to the rest, your heart is not concerned, so you can have nothing to fear; and as for a platonic attachment on the part of Mr. L----, his wife, even according to her own rigid principles, cannot blame you. Adieu, my charming friend! Instead of laughing at your fit of prudery, I ought to encourage your scruples, that I might profit by them. If they should bring you to Paris immediately, with what joy should I embrace my Olivia, and how much gratitude should I owe to the jealousy of Lady Leonora L----! R---- is not yet returned. When I have any news to give you of him, depend upon it you shall hear from me again. Accept, my interesting Olivia, the vows of my most tender and eternal friendship. GABRIELLE DE P----. * * * * * LETTER XXXIV. OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----. L---- Castle, Tuesday. Your charming letter, my Gabrielle, has at once revived my spirits and dissipated all my scruples; you mistake, however, in supposing that Leonora is in love with her husband: more and more reason have I every hour to be convinced that Leonora has never known the passion of love; consequently her jealousy was, as I at first pronounced it to be, the selfish jealousy of matrimonial power and property. Else why does it subside, why does it vanish, when, if it were a jealousy of the heart, it has now more provocation, infinitely more than when it appeared in full force? Leonora could see that her husband distinguished me at a _fête champêtre_; she could see what the eyes of others showed her; she could hear what envy whispered, or what scandal hinted; she was mortified, she was alarmed even to fainting by a public preference, by a silly country girl’s mistaking me for _the wife_, and doing homage to me as to the lady of the manor; but Leonora cannot perceive in the object of her affection the symptoms that mark the rise and progress of _a real love_. Leonora feels not the little strokes, which would be fatal blows to the peace of a truly delicate mind; she heeds not “the trifles light as air” which would be confirmation strong to a soul of genuine sensibility. My influence over the mind of L----increases rapidly, and I shall let it rise to its acmè before I seem to notice it. Leonora, re-assured, I suppose, by a few flattering words, and more, perhaps, by