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Rh De Hamal managed our flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fête, when Madame (for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be absent at the concert in the park. I suppose you must have gone with her. I watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven o'clock. How you returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture. That surely was you we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did you see me wave my handkerchief from the carriage window?

"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme happiness, and believe me, dear eynic and misanthrope, yours, in the best of health, and spirits,

"P.S.—Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mama, and the girls at home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter, the Countess! My sister, the Countess.' Bravo! Sounds rather better thai* Mrs. John Bretton, hein?"