During the month Selwyn spent in Paris, however, waiting for Mie
Mie, who was passing the specified time in the convent, fresh
difficulties were raised, and he began to doubt if he should ever
bring the little girl to England. His health was seriously affected
by the strain, and his friends begged him to give up a pursuit which
was injuring it and taking him from them; but Mie Mie was at last
received from the convent under a vague condition that at some
future time she should return to it; a half promise which neither
side expected would be fulfilled.

The Rev. Dr. Warner gives us a slight description of Mie Mie. A year
had passed; she is nine years old; he is writing to Selwyn:--

"That freshness of complexion I should have great pleasure in
beholding. It must add to her charms, and cannot diminish the
character, sense, and shrewdness which distinguish her physiognomy,
and which she possesses in a great degree, with a happy engrafting
of a high-bred foreign air upon an English stock . . .

"But how very pleasant to me was your honest and naive confession of
the joy your heart felt at hearing her admired! It is, indeed, most
extraordinary that a certain person who has great taste--would he
had as much nature!--should not see her with very different eyes
from what he does. I can never forget that naive expression of Mme.
de Sevigne, 'Je ne sais comment Von fait de ne pas aimer sa fille?'"

* The Duke of Queens berry.

But Selwyn was never quite free from the fear that she should be