Adieu, beloved sister!
April 30, 1869.
The exiles return to-morrow, dear Kate. What overpowering joy, and yet what dread! If this winter’s absence should not have cured our invalids! O my God! I give up my will to thee. I am just come in from Notre Dame des Miracles: I shall melt away in prayers. Thérèse smiles like the angels. Alix and Marguérite have bought flowers for their friends. A hundred times a day I enter Marcella’s room to see that nothing is wanting there. How worldly I am with my agitations!
Since you approve, my godson will be Guy. How beautiful the little angel is, and how I shall enjoy showing him to-morrow! My mother continues to spoil me. I have just discovered a mysterious parcel on my dressing-table; it contains the history of St. John and the life of Madame Elizabeth, by M. de Beauchesne. What a pleasant surprise!
Do you know Mgr. Dupanloup will make the panegyric? He is going to Domrémy, there to inspire himself with the memories of Joan of Arc. Several bishops will be
present at the festival of the 8th of May. Nothing is said at present about our departure, but I am burning to see you, dear Kate.
My six children will go with us into Brittany. I make them long and frequent visits.
Edouard’s latest gazette quoted the following fragment from Alphonse Karr, which is easily to be explained by the frivolity of the times: “If a very beautiful dress were invented—a dress of fairy-like splendor, but which might only be worn in going to execution—there are women to be found who would quarrel with each other to wear this dress.” Do you believe this, dearest? Raoul declares it to be certain. Adrien and René have a better opinion of us.
Margaret wishes she were farsighted enough to see as far as here—the dear, inquisitive one! She has been spending three days with Edith, and speaks to me warmly of my home—“Georgina’s house.” Ah! yes, home, home—the terrestrial Paradise, and, as a poet has said, “The urn into which the heart pours itself.”
May 1.—It cost me something to end my letter before the arrival: they are here, dear Kate, all cured, as far as I can perceive. O the pleasure of expecting them! Then the cries of joy; the questions, crossing each other; the petulant Lucy bounding up the stairs to embrace my mother first of all; the emotion of Marcella on showing me her child well and, the doctor says, “out of danger,” and my tears on the brow of Picciola! How we had missed them!