undrape their shoulders. So much for midnight. To-morrow the scene will
be lovely with the beauty of day. Under one aspect or another I have it
always before me. At the end of the garden is moored a boat, in which
Theodore and I have indulged in an immense deal of irregular
navigation. What lovely landward coves and bays--what alder-smothered
creeks--what lily-sheeted pools--what sheer steep hillsides, making the
water dark and quiet where they hang. I confess that in these excursions
Theodore looks after the boat and I after the scenery. Mr. Sloane avoids
the water--on account of the dampness, he says; because he's afraid of
drowning, I suspect.

22d.--Theodore is right. The _bonhomme_ has taken me into his favor. I
protest I don't see how he was to escape it. _Je l'ai bien soigné_, as
they say in Paris. I don't blush for it. In one coin or another I must
repay his hospitality--which is certainly very liberal. Theodore dots
his _i_'s, crosses his _t_'s, verifies his quotations; while I set traps
for that famous "curiosity." This speaks vastly well for my powers. He
pretends to be surprised at nothing, and to possess in perfection--poor,
pitiable old fop--the art of keeping his countenance; but repeatedly, I
know, I have made him stare. As for his corruption, which I spoke of
above, it's a very pretty piece of wickedness, but it strikes me as a
purely intellectual matter. I imagine him never to have had any real
senses. He may have been unclean; morally, he's not very tidy now; but
he never can have been what the French call a _viveur_. He's too
delicate, he's of a feminine turn; and what woman was ever a _viveur_?
He likes to sit in his chair and read scandal, talk scandal, make
scandal, so far as he may without catching a cold or bringing on a
headache. I already feel as if I had known him a lifetime. I read him
as clearly as if I had. I know the type to which he belongs; I have
encountered, first and last, a good many specimens of it. He's neither