How could I, poor thing?
She has always loved me, and been so anxious to please me, and this time she seriously thought that Robert and I would be delighted.

Extraordinary defect of comprehension! Still, I did not, I could not, conceal from her that she had given me great pain, and she replied in a tone which really made me almost feel ungrateful for being pained, she said 'rather that her whole book had perished than have given me a moment's pain.' How are you to feel after _that_?
For the rest, it appears that she had merely come forward to the rescue of my reputation, no more than so.

Sundry romantic tales had been in circulation about me.

I was 'in widow's weeds' in my habitual costume--and, in fact, before I was married I had grievously scandalised the English public (the imaginative part of the public), and it was expedient to 'tirer de l'autre cote.' Well, I might have laughed at _that_--but I didn't.

I wrote a very affectionate letter, for I really love Miss Mitford, though she understands me no more under certain respects than you in England understand Louis Napoleon and the French nation.