Petty Troubles of Married Life, part 2

"VIVIERS.

"You have not yet written to me, and it's real unkind in you. Don't you remember that the happier was to write first and to console her who remained in the country?

"Since your departure for Paris, I have married Monsieur de la Roulandiere, the president of the tribunal. You know him, and you can judge whether I am happy or not, with my heart /saturated/, as it is, with our ideas. I was not ignorant what my lot would be: I live with the ex-president, my husband's uncle, and with my mother-in-law, who has preserved nothing of the ancient parliamentary society of Aix but its pride and its severity of manners. I am seldom alone, I never go out unless accompanied by my mother-in-law or my husband. We receive the heavy people of the city in the evening. They play whist at two sous a point, and I listen to conversations of this nature:

"'Monsieur Vitremont is dead, and leaves two hundred and eighty thousand francs,' says the associate judg