Well, I will try and go to work, it is
only one more little drop. God bless you, dear lady.
_Friday_.--I have had a good morning's work, and at two o'clock comes
your letter; dear friend, thank you. What a coward I was! I will go and
walk and be happy for an hour, it is a grand frosty sunshine. To-morrow
morning early back to London.
* * * * *
Madam's letter made a very agreeable appearance upon the breakfast-table
this morning when I entered that apartment at eleven o'clock. I don't
know how I managed to sleep so much, but such was the fact--after a fine
broiling hot day's utter idleness, part of which was spent on a sofa, a
little in the Tuillery gardens, where I made a sketch that's not a
masterpiece, but p'raps Madam will like to see it: and the evening very
merrily with the _Morning Chronicle_, the _Journal des Debats_, and
Jules Janin at a jolly little restaurateur's at the Champs Elysees at
the sign of the Petit Moulin Rouge. We had a private room and drank
small wine very gaily, looking out into a garden full of green arbours,
in almost every one of which were gentlemen and ladies in couples come
to dine _au frais_, and afterwards to go and dance at the neighbouring
dancing garden of Mabille. Fiddlers and singers came and performed for
us: and who knows I should have gone to Mabille too, but there came down
a tremendous thunderstorm, with flashes of lightning to illuminate it,
which sent the little couples out of the arbours, and put out all the
lights of Mabille.
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