with all
the rest of you to keep your company."

So saying the prince bade him farewell and went out. Rousseau did not try
to keep him.

About this time I witnessed the failure of a play called 'Aristides'
Daughter', written by the ingenious Madame de Graffini, who died of
vexation five days after her play was damned. The Abbe de Voisenon was
horrified, as he had advised the lady to produce it, and was thought to
have had some hand in its composition, as well as in that of the 'Lettres
Peruviennes' and 'Cenie'. By a curious coincidence, just about the same
date, Rezzonico's mother died of joy because her son had become pope.
Grief and joy kill many more women than men, which proves that if women
have mere feeling than men they have also less strength.

When Madame d'Urfe thought that my adopted son was comfortably settled in
Viar's house, she made me go with her and pay him a visit. I found him
lodged like a prince, well dressed, made much of, and almost looked up
to. I was astonished, for this was more than I had bargained for. Madame
d'Urfe had given him masters of all sorts, and a pretty little pony for
him to learn riding on. He was styled M. le Comte d'Aranda. A girl of
sixteen, Viar's daughter, a fine-looking young woman, was appointed to
look after him, and she was quite proud to call herself my lord's
governess. She assured Madame d'Urfe that she took special care of him;
that as soon as he woke she brought him his breakfast in bed; that she
then dressed him, and did not leave his side the whole day. Madame d'Urfe
approved of everything, told the girl to take even greater care of the
count, and promised that she should not go unrewarded. As for the young
gentleman, he was evidently quite happy, as he told me himself again and
again, but I suspected a mystery somewhere, and determined that I would
go and see him by myself another time and solve it.

On our journey home I told Madame d'Urfe how grateful I was for all her
goodness to the boy, and that I approved of all the arrangements that had
been made with the exception of the name Aranda, "which," said I, "may
some day prove a thorn in his side." She answered that the lad had said
enough to convince her that he had a right to bear that name. "I had,"
she said, "in my desk a seal with the arms of the house of Aranda, and
happening to take it up I shewed it him as we shew trinkets to children
to amuse them, but as soon as he saw it he burst out,

"'How came