What a proud hour it would be.
The Marchese was indulging in these thoughts; dressing himself the
while, and looking every now and then at the two letters lying on
his table, when a footman tapped at the door and handed to the
valet, who was attending on his master, yet a third epistle. Unlike
the Cardinal's servant, the man who had brought it had simply left
it, and gone away without saying anything about an answer.
This third letter did not resemble its two predecessors--at least on
the outside--at all. It was a very little letter; not a quarter of
the size of either of the others; and the seal wherewith it was
sealed was not a tenth of the size of that of his Eminence; also,
instead of being white like the Cardinal's, or whity-yellow like the
Prelate's, it was rose-coloured, and delicately perfumed. And the
superscription, "All' Illmmo Sigr il Sigr Marchese Lamberto di
Castelmare," was written in very daintily pretty and delicate small
characters; as unmistakably feminine a letter as ever a gentleman
received.
The Marchese's face changed visibly as the little missive was put
into his hands. Yet he opened it eagerly, and opened his nostrils to
the perfume, which exhaled from it, with a greedily sensuous seeming
of pleasure.
This letter ran as follows:--
"Dearest And Best,--If you were not indeed and indeed so to me,
could I have ever suffered the vow that binds us mutually to each
other to have been uttered?--Dearest and best, I write mainly, I
think, for the mere pleasure of addressing you.
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