I begin to think, my dear Aza, that the time is very long before I see you. With how much ardour do I wish your journey at an end! Time has dissipated my fears, and I now look on them only as a dream, of which the morning dawn has effaced even the impression. I cannot help thinking myself criminal for having suspected you, and my repentance increases my tenderness to such a degree, that it has almost erased my compassion for Deterville. I cannot forgive his having conceived so ill an opinion of you, and I now feel my regret much less for being, in a manner, separated from him.

We have now been at Paris a fortnight; and I live with Celina in her husband's house, which is so distant from that of her brother, that I am no longer obliged to see him every hour. He often indeed comes hither to eat; but Celina and I live in such a continual round of pleasures, that he cannot find leisure to speak to me in private.

Since our return, great part of the day is employed in the tedious work of dressing, and the remainder, in what is here called paying visits.

These two employments seem to me as useless as they are fatiguing. All that can be said for it is, that going into company procures me the means of informing myself more particularly of the customs of the country.

At my first arrival in France, being ignorant of their language, I could judge of things only by their appearances. Afterwards, I could learn but very little in the religious house, nor did I find the country turn to better account, where I saw only a certain society, with whose company I was too much tired to pay any attention to them. But it is here, that by conversing with what they call the great world, I see the whole nation.