Wednesday, June, 1843.

Your letter was so kind and affectionate that it has blown away the last remaining cloud of the recent storm. But I feel that we shall not be sure of having forgotten it until we have buried our quarrel beneath other memories.

Why should we not take a walk Friday? If it will not inconvenience you, it will give me the greatest pleasure. I hope we shall have fine weather. You promised, moreover, to tell me something which must be too important to be deferred. I shall bring along a Spanish book, and, if you like, we will read.

You have not yet told me whether you would pay me for my lessons. The time which we spend otherwise than in what you are pleased to call talking nonsense, seems to me so ill-employed that I ought at least to earn something for my pains. Why should I not give you Spanish lessons at your house? I could call myself Don Furlano, or something else, and bring you a letter of introduction from Madame de P. describing me as victim of Espartero’s tyranny.

I am beginning to find our dependence on sunshine and rain somewhat irksome. I want, also, to paint your portrait. You have promised often to invent some plan of meeting. You pretend to govern, but, as a fact, you discharge your duties very badly, and I can judge very unfairly, therefore, of your possibilities and your impossibilities. If you were to reflect upon the delicate problem of how to see each other as often as possible, would you not be doing a worthy action? There are many other things I wish to say to you, but it would be necessary to refer to our quarrel, and I desire to blot it altogether from my memory. I want to remember only our reconciliation, which you seem to regret. That would be unkind in you. I am sorry, indeed, that I must owe so much happiness to such an unfortunate cause.

Good-bye. Consider your statue, and animate without first harassing it.