TORU DUTT. 539 " I must pause here ; I will not further intrude upon your time. Like M. Lefevre-Deumier, I must say : "Farewell then, dear friend whom I have not known," " For, Mademoiselle, I count you among my friends and among my best friends, although I have not seen you. " Believe, Mademoiselle, the renewed assurance of my friendship, Toru Dutt." , From a postscript we learn that she had expected to visit Europe for her health, and she expresses her hope of soon meeting her unknown friend. In April, however, she writes again, saying that she had been very ill for a fortnight, and that this plan had been abandoned. She asked Mile. Bader to write to her at her old address — "your letter and your portrait will do m^ good." It is pleasant to think how she must have enjoyed the cheering and appreciative letter which she received in reply. It enclosed the portrait, too, although Mile. Bader declares that her photographs were always each uglier than the last, and that it was a great piece of self-sacrifice for her to send one to anybody who hacf never seen her. Toru answers briefly but warmly, thanking her friend for her kindness and excusing herself from writing more at length on the ground that she has been suffering four months from fever, and is still too weak to go from her own room to the next without feeling extreme fatigue. One more letter from Mile. Bader, even more cordial and affectionate than the last,, closes the correspondence. It is full of sympathy and encouragement. She exclaims with surprise that Toru, in her photograph apparently the picture of health, should have been so ill. "But now," she adds, "you have wholly recovered, have you not? And, at the time of the Exposition, you will come to our sweet land of France, whose mild breezes Will do you good— you, who have suffered from your
