MY DEAR FRANCIE--I felt very badly after you had gone yesterday morning, and I had twenty minds to go and see you. But we’ve talked it over conscientiously and it appears to us that we’ve no right to take any such step till Gaston arrives. The situation isn’t exclusively ours but belongs to him as well, and we feel we ought to make it over to him in as simple and compact a form as possible. Therefore, as we regard it, we had better not touch it (it’s so delicate, isn’t it, my poor child?) but leave it just as it is. They think I even exceed my powers in writing you these simple lines, and that once your participation has been constatee (which was the only advantage of that dreadful scene) EVERYTHING should stop. But I’ve liked you, Francie, I’ve believed in you, and I don’t wish you to be able to say that in spite of the thunderbolt you’ve drawn down on us I’ve not treated you with tenderness. It’s a thunderbolt indeed, my poor and innocent but disastrous little friend! We’re hearing more of it already--the horrible Republican papers here have (AS WE KNOW) already got hold of the unspeakable sheet and are preparing to reproduce the article: that is such parts of it as they may put forward (with innuendoes and sous-entendus to eke out the rest) without exposing themselves to a suit for defamation. Poor Leonie de Villepreux has been with us constantly and Jeanne and her husband have telegraphed that we may expect them day after to-morrow. They are evidently immensely emotionnes, for they almost never telegraph. They wish so to receive Gaston. We have determined all the same to be intensely QUIET, and that will be sure to be his view. Alphonse and Maxime now recognise that it’s best to leave Mr. Flack alone, hard as it is to keep one’s hands off him. Have you anything to lui faire dire--to my precious brother when he arrives? But it’s foolish of me to ask you that, for you had much better not answer this. You will no doubt have an opportunity to say to him--whatever, my dear Francie, you CAN say! It will matter comparatively little that you may never be able to say it to your friend with every allowance SUZANNE DE BRECOURT.