“The Prince returned last Tuesday to the Moskova, but no one has seen him, nor has any one been admitted within the gates. Of course there are a hundred rumors as to the why and the wherefore,----some alleging that he has received orders of 'réclusion,' as they call it, from home, the Emperor not being quite satisfied with his political campaign; some, that he has taken up a grudge against the court here, and shows his spleen in this fashion. But what shallow reason would this be for a hermit life? and what legitimate ground of complaint have not we, who, so to say, possess a vested interest in his truffles and ortolans and dry champagne? I assure you that such conduct rouses all the democracy of my nature, and I write these lines with a red silk cap on my head. After all, the real good he effected was a kind of reflected light. He crushed little people, and ground down all their puny efforts at balls, dinners, and _déjeuners_. He shamed into modest insignificance such a world of snobbery, and threw an air of ridicule over 'small early partyism' and 'family dinners.' What a world of dyspepsia has he thus averted,----what heartburns and heartburnings! Oh, little people! little people! ye are a very dreadful generation, for ye muddy the waters of society, so that no man can drink thereof. “Politically, we are calm and reactionary; and whether it be thrashing has done it, I know not, but some of the Tuscans are 'Black and Yellow' already. Not that the dear Austrians promise to make Florence better or pleasanter. They mix badly with our population. It is as if you threw a spoonful of 'sauerkraut' into your 'potage à la reine!' Besides, the Italians are like the Chinese,----unchanged and unchangeable,--and they detest the advent of all strangers who would interfere with their own little, soft, sleepy, and enervating code of wickedness. “Pray send me three lines, just to say----Is it to be or not to be? Rose, the tailor, is persecuting me about a mocha-brown, for a wedding garment, which certainly would harmonize well with the prevailing tints of my hair and eyebrows, but I am too prudent a diplomatist to incur 'extraordinaires' till I be sure of 'my mission.' Therefore write at once, for such is my confidence in your skill and ability that I only wait your mandate to launch into kid gloves and lacquered leather, quite regardless of expense. “Yours, most devotedly, “Albert JEKYL. “I open this to say that Morlache was seen going to the Moskora last night with two caskets of jewels. Will this fact throw any light on the mysterious seclusion?”