. She soon came down with the pretty boarder, who feebly
sustained my part in her amorous ecstacies. She had not yet completed her
twelfth year, but she was extremely tall and well developed for her age.
Gentleness, liveliness, candour, and wit were united in her features, and
gave her expression an exquisite charm. She wore a well-made corset which
disclosed a white throat, to which the fancy easily added the two spheres
which would soon appear there. Her entrancing face, her raven locks, and
her ivory throat indicated what might be concealed, and my vagrant
imagination made her into a budding Venus. I began by telling her that
she was very pretty, and would make her future husband a happy man. I
knew she would blush at that. It may be cruel, but it is thus that the
language of seduction always begins. A girl of her age who does not blush
at the mention of marriage is either an idiot or already an expert in
profligacy. In spite of this, however, the blush which mounts to a young
girl's cheek at the approach of such ideas is a puzzling problem. Whence
does it arise? It may be from pure simplicity, it may be from shame, and
often from a mixture of both feelings. Then comes the fight between vice
and virtue, and it is usually virtue which has to give in. The
desires--the servants of vice--usually attain their ends. As I knew the
young boarder from M---- M----'s description, I could not be ignorant of
the source of those blushes which added a fresh attraction to her
youthful charms.

Pretending not to notice anything, I talked to M---- M---- for a few
moments, and then returned to the assault. She had regained her calm.

"What age are you, pretty one?" said I.

"I am thirteen."

"You are wrong," said M---- M----, "you have not yet completed your
twelfth year."

"The time will come," said I, "when you will diminish the tale of your
years instead of increasing it."

"I shall never tell a lie, sir; I am sure of that."

"So you want to be a nun, do you?"

"I have not yet received my vocation; but even if I live in the world I
need not be a liar."

"You are wrong; you will begin to lie as soon as you have a lover."

"Will my lover tell lies, too?"

"Certainly he will."

"If the matter were really so, then, I should have a bad opinion of love;
but I do not believe it, for I love my sweetheart here, and I never
conceal the truth from her."

"Yes, but loving a man is a different thing to loving a woman."

"No, it