ived it. All this was done with such an air
of carelessness and simplicity, that even when M. de Larnage was present;
her kisses and caresses were not omitted. He was a good quiet fellow,
the true original of his daughter; nor did his wife endeavor to deceive
him, because there was absolutely no occasion for it.

I received all these caresses with my usual stupidity, taking them only
for marks of pure friendship, though they were sometimes troublesome; for
the lively Madam Lard was displeased, if, during the day, I passed the
shop without calling; it became necessary, therefore (when I had no time
to spare), to go out of my way through another street, well knowing it
was not so easy to quit her house as to enter it.

Madam Lard thought so much of me, that I could not avoid thinking
something of her. Her attentions affected me greatly; and I spoke of
them to Madam de Warrens, without supposing any mystery in the matter,
but had there been one I should equally have divulged it, for to have
kept a secret of any kind from her would have been impossible. My heart
lay as open to Madam de Warrens as to Heaven. She did not understand the
matter quite so simply as I had done, but saw advances where I only
discovered friendship. She concluded that Madam Lard would make a point
of not leaving me as great a fool as she found me, and, some way or
other, contrive to make herself understood; but exclusive of the
consideration that it was not just, that another should undertake the
instruction of her pupil, she had motives more worthy of her, wishing to
guard me against the snares to which my youth and inexperience exposed
me. Meantime, a more dangerous temptation offered which I likewise
escaped, but which proved to her that such a succession of dangers
required every preservative she could possibly apply.

The Countess of Menthon, mother to one of my scholars, was a woman of
great wit, and reckoned to possess, at least, an equal share of mischief,
having (as was reported) caused a number of quarrels, and, among others,
one that terminated fatally for the house of D' Antremont. Madam de
Warrens had seen enough of her to know her character: for having (very
innocently) pleased some person to whom Madam de Menthon had pretensions,
she found her guilty of the crime of this preference, though Madam de
Warrens had neither sought after nor accepted it, and from that moment
endeavored to play her rival a number of ill turns, none of