the separation would be only temporary, and that when Genevieve had regained her strength she would be willing to go back to her husband; but nothing would induce her to do so.  In fact, poor Gigi had spent all her money, and they would have had nothing to live upon but his pay, and you know that the pay of the Italian officers is very small.

“Gigi made several attempts to see her, and he threatened to take the child from her, but he was always willing to compromise for money.  I am afraid that he never really loved her and that we were both deceived by his fervent protestations.  We managed to get away from Florence without his knowing it, and we have spent the last two years in Lausanne, very happily, though very quietly.  Our dear Checco is in the university there, his father having given up the plan of sending him to Harvard, and we had him with us, while we were taking measures to secure the divorce.  Even in the simple way we lived Genevieve attracted a great deal of attention, as she always has done, and she would have had several eligible offers if she had been divorced, or if her affections had not already been engaged, as I did not know at the time.

“We were in this state of uncertainty up to the middle of last summer, when the news of poor Gigi’s sudden death came.  I am sorry to say that his habits in some respects were not good, and that probably hastened it some; it had obliged him to leave the army.  Genevieve did not feel that she could consistently put on black for him, and I did not urge her, under the peculiar circumstances; there is so much mere formality in those kind of things at the best; but we immediately returned to Florence to try and see if we could not get back some of her effects which his family had seized.  I am opposed to lawsuits if they can possibly be avoided, and we arranged with poor Gigi’s family by agreeing to let them have Genevieve’s furniture if they would promise never to molest her with the child, and I must say they have behaved very well.  We are on the best of terms with them, and they have let us have some of the things back which were endeared to her by old associations, at a very reasonable rate.

“This brings me to the romantic part of my letter, and I will say at once that we found your friend Mr. Durgin in Florence, in the very hotel we went to.  We all met in the dining-room, at the table d’hote one evening, and Genevieve and he took to each other at once.  He spent the evening with us in our private drawing-room, and she said to me, after he went, that for the first time in years she felt rested.  It seems that she had always secretly fancied him, and that she gave up to me in the matter of marrying poor Gigi, because she knew I had my heart set upon it, and she was not very certain of her own feelings when Mr. D. offered himself in Boston; but the conviction that she had made a mistake grew upon, her more and more after she had married Gigi.