Guerande, April, 1838.

  To Madame la Duchesse de Grandlieu: 

Dear Mamma,—­You will understand why I did not write to you during the journey,—­our wits are then like wheels.  Here I am, for the last two days, in the depths of Brittany, at the hotel du Guenic, —­a house as covered with carving as a sandal-wood box.  In spite of the affectionate devotion of Calyste’s family, I feel a keen desire to fly to you, to tell you many things which can only be trusted to a mother.

Calyste married, dear mamma, with a great sorrow in his heart.  We all knew that, and you did not hide from me the difficulties of my position; but alas! they are greater than you thought.  Ah! my dear mother, what experience we acquire in the short space of a few days—­I might even say a few hours!  All your counsels have proved fruitless; you will see why from one sentence:  I love Calyste as if he were not my husband,—­that is to say, if I were married to another, and were travelling with Calyste, I should love Calyste and hate my husband.

Now think of a man beloved so completely, involuntarily, absolutely, and all the other adverbs you may choose to employ, and you will see that my servitude is established in spite of your good advice.  You told me to be grand, noble, dignified, and self-respecting in order to obtain from Calyste the feelings that are never subject to the chances and changes of life,—­esteem, honor, and the consideration which sanctifies a woman in the bosom of her family.  I remember how you blamed, I dare say justly, the young women of the present day, who, under pretext of living happily with their husbands, begin by compliance, flattery, familiarity, an abandonment, you called it, a little too wanton (a word I did not fully understand), all of which, if I must believe you, are relays that lead rapidly to indifference and possibly to contempt.  “Remember that you are a Grandlieu!” yes, I remember that you told me all that—­

But oh! that advice, filled with the maternal eloquence of a female Daedelus has had the fate of all things mythological.  Dear, beloved mother, could you ever have supposed it possible that I should begin by the catastrophe which, according to you, ends the honeymoon of the young women of the present day?

When Calyste and I were fairly alone in the travelling carriage, we felt rather foolish in each other’s company, understanding the importance of the first word, the first look; and we both, bewildered by the solemnity, looked out of our respective windows.  It became so ridiculous that when we reached the barrier monsieur began, in a rather troubled tone of voice, a set discourse, prepared, no doubt, like other improvisations, to which I listened with a beating heart, and which I take the liberty of here abridging.

“My dear Sabine,” he said, “I want you to be happy, and, above all, do