"So there he is at last," said he, "the father of the play, the midwife too," he said. "You were there that awful day. Only you know," he said, "in all the world, what we have done. I am so pleased. No one knows but you. Please come. There are special seats and, afterward, all sorts of surprises. This play," he said, examining me closely with his gleaming foreign eye, "will change your life."

LARRIT, I HARDLY KNOW how to address you from this distance. Indeed, having just begun my chapter how democracy affects relations between master and servant, the matter is of some concern. I do wish you will soon return to attend to its legible transcription, and then you will find yourself more in agreement with me than with anyone else in Wethersfield.

I cannot think what has become of you and confess I wake several times each night, alarmed by the powers I have entrusted to you, not least your stewardship of my New York bank. Perhaps it will amuse you-although I hope not-to see your master dangling on this particular hook. And yet there is no other person on this I should trust more than yourself, and no matter what early difficulties we knew, I have never been unmindful of the long and faithful service you gave M. de Tilbot. Surely you would expect that I know a great deal about your service to him in the years after his properties were forfeited. I have been many times reminded of the scrupulous and honorable way you attended to the breaking up of his father's folios, and with what discretion and commercial judgment. That a noble lord should be reduced to surviving as a bookseller was too much for him to bear, and you, I know, undertook this liquidation on his behalf and left the most particular accounting of the transactions. This the Marquis de Tilbot was keen to impress on me when he offered your services. Do not think I accepted his gift ignorantly or lightly.

Perhaps you have not felt your value is apparent to me. Believe me, you have proved yourself to me time and time again, not only when you stood by my side against the mob but even when I least appreciated it. Your purchase of the Versailles Impromptu was one such incident and I have successfully copied your comic enactment, together with a string of commentary that pretty much follows the path that you indicated.

All this makes your failure to return a source of concern, for trusting your integrity, being needful of your assistance, I hardly know what to think except that harm has come to you. Are you ill?

I have completed these chapters in readiness for your return:

* INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON WAGES

* HOW THE GIRL CAN BE SEEN BENEATH THE FEATURES OF THE WIFE

* EDUCATION OF GIRLS IN THE UNITED STATES

* HOW THE EQUALITY OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS HELPS TO MAINTAIN GOOD MORALS IN AMERICA

* SOME REFLECTIONS ON AMERICAN MANNERS

Thus some thirty pages are already here. For the present they lie atop the tall black spines of Mr. Godefroy's Virgil, and I am reminded by the flickering of the fire-the same warm light that brushes Miss Godefroy's cheeks as she turns the page of her novel-of the double nature of the fire.

Monsieur, I wish to say to you that you have been, and I hope will continue to be, of immense service, and as the long days progress and I labor on this book, I feel we are both, you and I, partners in a matter that represents your own cause as well.

I will write for you, whenever you ask for it, the most useful letter imaginable, one that would have the presidents of America wish to have you as their trusted confidant and friend, and once your service to me is at an end-well, I wonder if this is what you will require. Consider this, as you chart your course, for I doubt there is a better letter for you than the one I plan to write.

Dear Larrit, I have been traveling out from Wethersfield on more than one occasion, having traversed the most primitive wilds, with no sign of any human soul. Last week I came upon one of those poor settler's cabins where one's first thought is to pity them the plainness of their existence, the lack of cultured society, or any of the comforts that even the peasants of Orne might take for granted. But here, as one such fellow pointed out to me, it is the opposite of France where land is beyond price. Here land is taken freely, and it is only the labor of the family that is bought dearly, but what one finally comes to understand is that one is talking to the lord of the manor, and if one's eyes can see the dense wild forest as his domain, one sees oneself much as I might see myself at the Chateau de Barfleur. This, monsieur, may be a life you would consider, and if that were so I would assist you in every way. The cost to you would be somewhere in the region of forty chapters of transcription.

It was in the midst of this profound solitude, some miles beyond this settler's cabin, that I thought of the July Revolution. I cannot say with what violence the memories of the twenty-ninth of that month took possession of my spirit. The cries and smoke of combat, the sound of cannon, the rolling of musketry, the still more terrible tolling of the tocsin-the entire day with its enflamed atmosphere seemed suddenly to rise out of the past and place itself as a living tableau before me. There was a sudden illumination. When, raising my head, I glanced around, the apparition had already disappeared. But never had the silence of the forest seemed colder, its shades more deep, or its solitude so complete.

As you and I walk these American streets it is perhaps best you are aware of the present state of Europe which my father writes "seems to be that of a volcano ready to explode." Coincidentally the administration of justice in France is moving to curtail my eighteen-month leave of absence, and here I sit before the fire at Old Farm, the fire crackling merrily and Miss Godefroy, as I write, laying down her novel on her lap and smiling at me and at her mother, who has revealed herself to be not so bad a soul, glancing from one to the other of us before returning to her crochet hook with something close to contentment. I do not suggest Paradise-she and Amelia have, this very night at dinner, suffered a loud and distressing disagreement on whether Christmas was a pagan feast or no. This I am sure is a question of little interest to a declared atheist, except that the Godefroy family has ordered me to issue an invitation to you and your family to visit at that time of year.

My immediate thought was that this was one of those American misunderstandings. For would you not agree with me that in aristocracies masters and servants share no natural similarities and although wealth, education, opinions, and rights keep them a great distance apart on the scale of human beings, the passing of time winds up nevertheless tying them closely together, so much so that they would both agree they should not share a table at Christmas though they know each other better than any other pair at that table. Long-shared memories keep them together and, despite their differences, they have grown alike.

Here in Wethersfield, where I am as unexpectedly content as I have ever been, we would find our ideas questioned at every moment. They believe that aristocrats will mingle with the common mass, while I despair of seeing the end of that noble class. My dear Miss Godefroy believes that the European will one day mingle with the Negro. To me this is a wishful delusion and nothing one observes can possibly support it.

For all that, will you, dear sir, be so kind as to attend Old Farm at Christmas? It will require no second reading to understand your services are required by the master of us both, I mean the book.

Also, if you please, two cases of that Montrachet and whatever gold coin you think safe to travel with.