were always found at her morning levees, should hear), she added, "you
will receive a note from me this evening."

I bowed, changed the conversation, and withdrew. I dined in my own rooms,
and spent the evening in looking over the various billets-doux, received
during my sejour at Paris.

"Where shall I put all these locks of hair?" asked Bedos, opening a
drawer full.

"Into my scrap-book."

"And all these letters?"

"Into the fire."

I was just getting into bed when the Duchesse de Perpignan's note
arrived--it was as follows:--

"My dear Friend,

"For that word, so doubtful in our language, I may at least call you in
your own. I am unwilling that you should leave this country with those
sentiments you now entertain of me, unaltered, yet I cannot imagine any
form of words of sufficient magic to change them. Oh! if you knew how
much I am to be pitied; if you could look for one moment into this lonely
and blighted heart; if you could trace, step by step, the progress I have
made in folly and sin, you would see how much of what you now condemn and
despise, I have owed to circumstances, rather than to the vice of my
disposition. I was born a beauty, educated a beauty, owed fame, rank,