that be told? I shall write you only what you know already, and
that is, how I love you.

Nantes, June, 1838.

Having now played the role of a chatelaine, adored by her vassals
as if the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 had lowered no banners; and
after rides through forests, and halts at farmhouses, dinners on
oaken tables, covered with centenary linen, bending under Homeric
viands served on antediluvian dishes; after drinking the choicest
wines in goblets to volleys of musketry, accompanied by cries of
"Long live the Guenics!" till I was deafened; after balls, where
the only orchestra was a bagpipe, blown by a man for ten hours;
and after bouquets, and young brides who wanted us to bless them,
and downright weariness, which made me find in my bed a sleep I
never knew before, with delightful awakenings when love shone
radiant as the sun pouring in upon me, and scintillating with a
million of flies, all buzzing in the Breton dialect!--in short,
after a most grotesque residence in the Chateau du Guenic, where
the windows are gates and the cows grace peacefully on the grass
in the halls (which castle we have sworn to repair and to inhabit
for a while very year to the wild acclamations of the clan du
Guenic, a /gars/ of which bore high our banner)--ouf! I am at
Nantes.

But oh! what a day was that when we arrived at the old castle! The
rector came out, mother, with all his clergy, crowned with
flowers, to receive us and bless us, expressing such joy,--the
tears are in my eyes as I think of it. And my noble Calyste! who
played his part of seigneur like a personage in Walter Scott! My