for posting. This she did that they might be an impulse to her
friendships and a record of her feelings.


ALIXE DUVARNEY TO LUCIE LOTBINIERE.

QUEBEC CITY, the 10th of May, 1756.

MY DEAR LUCIE: I wish I knew how to tell you all I have been
thinking since we parted at the door of the Ursulines a year ago.
Then we were going to meet again in a few weeks, and now twelve
months have gone! How have I spent them? Not wickedly, I hope,
and yet sometimes I wonder if Mere St. George would quite approve
of me; for I have such wild spirits now and then, and I shout and
sing in the woods and along the river as if I were a mad youngster
home from school. But indeed, that is the way I feel at times,
though again I am so quiet that I am frightened of myself. I am a
hawk to-day and a mouse to-morrow, and fond of pleasure all the
time. Ah, what good days I have had with Juste! You remember him
before he went to Montreal? He is gay, full of fancies, as brave
as can be, and plays and sings well, but he is very hot-headed,
and likes to play the tyrant. We have some bad encounters now and
then. But we love each other better for it; he respects me, and
he does not become spoiled, as you will see when you come to us.

I have had no society yet. My mother thinks seventeen years too
few to warrant my going into the gay world. I wonder will my wings
be any stronger, will there be less danger of scorching them at
twenty-six? Years do not make us wise; one may be as wise at twenty
as at fifty. And they do not save us from the scorching. I know