matter.

I am afraid Mlle. Henriette will never forgive me. She will soon be
walking around in a hospital, looking so pretty in her nurse's dress
and veil. But she will always think that she lost a great opportunity that
day--and a picturesque one.

By the way, I have a new inmate in my house--a kitten. He was
evidently lost during the emigration. Amélie says he is three months
old. He arrived at her door crying with hunger the other morning.
Amélie loves beasties better than humans. She took him in and fed
him. But as she has six cats already, she seemed to think that it was
my duty to take this one. She cloaked that idea in the statement that it
was "good for me" to have "something alive" moving about me in the
silent little house. So she put him in my lap. He settled himself down,
went to sleep, and showed no inclination to leave me.

At the end of two hours he owned me--the very first cat I ever knew,
except by sight.

So you may dismiss that idea which torments you--I am no longer
alone.

I am going to send this letter at once to be dropped in the box in front
of the post-office, where I am very much afraid it may find that of last
week, for we have had no letters yet nor have I seen or heard
anything of the promised automobile postale. However, once a
stamped letter is out of my hand, I always feel at least as if it had
started, though in all probability this may rest indefinitely in that
box in the "deserted village."