General Martin

This is part of the report drawn up by General Martin after his visit to May:

“I have found in her condition an improvement to a degree that may be called recovery.”

Miss May lives an ordinary life in her home; she attends to household matters, such as the buying of provisions, and she keeps her accounts with precise care. And I find her expenses in exact arithmetical proportion to her income. She is engaged in literary work and is preparing a study on the Phoenicians in the poems of Homer. Her papers of this kind are skillfully knit, and she receives her friends.

The atmosphere in which she lives is natural, and Miss May takes part in these conversations with quickness of wit, in elegant French.

Her temper is alert and cheerful; but the young lady complains of the smallness of her income resulting from the interdiction suit, since she cannot withdraw her money from the banks.

And her pain was deep on reading the journalistic ventures that circulated, without the least reserve, around her person. Her bodily health is excellent, and her activity is natural. I consider her capable of a settled life abroad, and I find her fit to manage her affairs and her property herself.

A slave woman raises none but slaves.