But what is unendurable is my babble"-- And herewith our nimble little woman hops off again into the general field of things; and gossips largely, How are you, my queen, Whither are you going, Whither we; That the Maillebois people are away, and also the Villeneuves, if anybody knew them now; then how the Estillacs, to the number of four, are coming to-morrow; and Cousin Soquence, for all his hunting, can catch nothing; and it is a continual coming and going; and how Boursoufle is to be played, and a Dame Dufour is just come, who will do a character.

Rubrics, vanished Shadows, nearly all those high Dames and Gentlemen; LA PAUVRE Saint-Pierre, "eaten with gout," who is she?
"Still drags herself about, as well as she can; but not with me, for I never go by land, and she seems to have the hydrophobia, when I take to the water.

[Thread of date is gone! I almost think we must have got to Saturday by this time:--or perhaps it is only Thursday, and Maillebois off prematurely, to be out of the way of the Farce?
Little De Staal takes no notice; but continues gossiping rapidly:] "Yesterday Madame du Chatelet got into her third lodging: she could not any longer endure the one she had chosen.

There was noise in it, smoke without fire:--privately meseems, a little the emblem of herself! As to noise, it was not by night that it incommoded her, she told me, but by day, when she was in the thick of her work: it deranges her ideas.

She is busy reviewing her PRINCIPLES"-- NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, no doubt, but De Staal will understand it only as PRINCIPES, Principles in general:--"it is an exercise she repeats every year, without which the Principles might get away, and perhaps go so far she would never find them again [You satirical little gypsy!].