of what he called his madness.  All kinds of affirmations have to be signed, you know.  The happy unhappy one took my hand, carried it to his lips, and, after that, he kept it for a long time clasped in his own.  A declaration followed. That one seemed to me more conformable than the first to the demands of our new condition, though our lips never said a word.  Perhaps I owed it to the vigorous indignation I felt and showed at the bad taste of a woman foolish enough not to love my beautiful, my glorious Calyste.

They are calling me to play a game of cards, which I do not yet understand.  I will finish my letter to-morrow.  To leave you at this moment to make a fifth at mouche (that is the name of the game) can only be done in the depths of Brittany—­Adieu.

Your Sabine.

Guerande, May, 1838.

I take up my Odyssey.  On the third day your children no longer used the ceremonious “you;” they thee’d and thou’d each other like lovers.  My mother-in-law, enchanted to see us so happy, is trying to take your place to me, dear mother, and, as often happens when people play a part to efface other memories, she has been so charming that she is, almost, you to me.

  I think she has guessed the heroism of my conduct, for at the
  beginning of our journey she tried to hide her anxiety with such
  care that it was visible from excessive precaution.

When I saw the towers of Guerande rising in the distance, I whispered in the ear of your son-in-law, “Have you really forgotten her?” My husband, now become my angel, can’t know anything, I think, about sincere and simple love, for the words made him wild with happiness.  Still, I think the desire to put Madame de Rochefide forever out of his mind led me too far.  But how could I help it?  I love, and I am half a Portuguese,—­for I am much more like you, mamma, than like my father.

Calyste accepts all from me as spoilt children accept things, they think it their right; he is an only child, I remember that.  But, between ourselves, I will not give my daughter (if I have any daughters) to an only son.  I see a variety of tyrants in an only son.  So, mamma, we have rather inverted our parts, and I am the devoted half of the pair.  There are dangers, I know, in devotion, though we profit by it; we lose our dignity, for one thing.  I feel bound to tell you of the wreck of that semi-virtue.  Dignity, after all, is only a screen set up before pride, behind which we rage as we please; but how could I help it? you were not here, and I saw a gulf opening before me.  Had I remained upon my dignity, I should have won only the cold joys (or pains) of a sort of brotherhood which would soon have drifted into indifference.  What sort of future might that have led to?  My devotion has, I know, made me Calyste’s slave; but shall I regret it?  We shall see.

  As for the present, I am delighted with it.  I love Calyste; I love
  him absolutely, with the folly of a mother, who thinks that all
  her son may do is right, even if he tyrannizes a trifle over her.