There are not so many adventures in these days as there were under Louis XIV.

and Louis XV., and so they publish fewer novels.

Besides, if you have read those letters, you must know that I have chosen the most angelic soul, the most sternly upright man for your son-in-law, and you must have seen that we love one another at least as much as you and mamma love each other.

Well, I admit that it was not all exactly conventional; I did, if you _will_ have me say so, wrong--" "I have read your letters," said her father, interrupting her, "and I know exactly how far your lover justified you in your own eyes for a proceeding which might be permissible in some woman who understood life, and who was led away by strong passion, but which in a young girl of twenty was a monstrous piece of wrong-doing." "Yes, wrong-doing for commonplace people, for the narrow-minded Gobenheims, who measure life with a square rule.

Please let us keep to the artistic and poetic life, papa.