“You ask also of my own future, my kind Kitty. Enigmatic, my dear, enigmatic to myself. I see Bas often and speak with him lightly and pass on with never a regret. He can hurt me no more. ’Tis all as dead and gone as the Pyramids. Did I ever love him? I can’t tell. ’Twas in a former life if so. Did he ever love me? He never loved or will love any but his charming self, though I hear of attentions to the rich and handsome Mrs. Janssen that may end in wedding favours. Let them! I will dance at his wedding with the lightest pair of heels there, and thank Heaven for my deliverance. “I writ you some time since—’tis good to be a widow. So good that I purpose to remain a widow indeed. You can’t dispute my wisdom since the Apostle himself commends the State and recommends it in preference to marriage, his Sanctity forgetting, as I think, that one must endure the tribulation of the one to attain the tranquillity of the other. Well, I have endured and attained and there I leave it. If for a moment I wavered I love my widowhood the better now. Says the Prince to me the other day—‘When shall we have your wedding favours?’ Says I—‘When I learn to love trouble better than ease and prefer discomfort to comfort. And that won’t be till I lose my senses in dotage, Sir.’ There’s many a true word spoken in jest. “Well, farewell, my kind Kitty,—but throw not a dart at my dear new Duchess. I name her the chaste Diana, and hold her so in word, thought, and deed. I fling down my glove as a challenge to man or woman who dares dispute it. And if even your dear self picks up the glove, I will fight to the death. “And now the lights burn low and I am for sleep. I make you my curtsey. Good-night, Good-night!” THE END TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.