and as
nearly as possible at the same hours you will have to think of me."

"It is a very pretty idea, and I like it. Now I forgive you for having
deceived me. Here are my ugly garters! Ah! my dear deceiver, how
beautiful yours are! What a handsome present! How they will please my
mother! They must be a present which you have just received, for they are
quite new."

"No, they have not been given to me. I bought them for you, and I have
been racking my brain to find how I could make you accept them. Love
suggested to me the idea of making them the prize of the race. You may
now imagine my sorrow when I saw that you would win. Vexation inspired me
with a deceitful stratagem which arose from a feeling you had caused
yourself, and which turned entirely to your honour, for you must admit
that you would have shewn a very hard heart if you had not come to my
assistance."

"And I feel certain that you would not have had recourse to that
stratagem, if you could have guessed how deeply it would pain me."

"Do you then feel much interest in me?"

"I would do anything in the world to convince you of it. I like my pretty
garters exceedingly; I will never have another pair, and I promise you
that my brother shall not steal them from me."

"Can you suppose him capable of such an action?"

"Oh! certainly, especially if the fastenings are in gold."

"Yes, they are in gold; but let him believe that they are in gilt brass."

"Will you teach me how to fasten my beautiful garters?"

"Of course I will."

We went upstairs, and after our dinner which we both enjoyed with a good
appetite, she became more lively and I more excited by love, but at the
same time more to be pitied in consequence of the restraint to which I
had condemned myself. Very anxious to try her garters, she begged me to
help her, and that request was made in good faith, without mischievous
coquetry. An innocent young girl, who, in spite of her fifteen years, has
not loved yet, who has not frequented the society of other girls, does
not know the violence of amorous desires or what is likely to excite
them. She has no idea of the danger of a tete-a-tete. When a natural
instinct makes her love for the first time, she believes the object of
her love worthy of her confidence, and she thinks that to be loved
herself she must shew the most boundless trust.

Seeing that her stockings were too short to fasten the garter above the
knee, she told me that she would in futu