Would we go home by way of Italy, you ask! Well, I don’t plan to run all over the country after a certain young man. If he wants to see me, he can come to Paris, and if he doesn’t, he needn’t! Now I can see you laugh, but I don’t care!
A. D. TO POLLY
Rome,
October.
I beg to thank you, dear Miss Polly, for your gypsy fortune-telling letter. Did the old gypsy mention by chance a blond Russian Prince? It was most kind of you to think of me at all, so far away in hot Rome, and indeed your letter brought a cool, refreshing air to temper the sirocco and hot sun here.
It has been a trying summer in Rome, and if it hadn’t been for some happy excursions I have been able to make to Florence and Venice and into the country and to the circus, I fear I should have found it unbearable.
Pray forgive my thanking you for your long and very sensible letter and for becoming almost confidential, and believe me, with my very cordial regards to your aunt and brother, and my compliments, very sincerely yours. Why do you let the Prince join you in Paris, I’d like to know?
(Br-r-r-! Your letter made me shiver!)