in the sun, but oftener in the shade, resting
from time to time, and regardless how the hours stole away; speaking of
ourselves, of our union, of the gentleness of our fate, and offering up
prayers for its duration, which were never heard. Everything conspired
to augment our happiness: it had rained for several days previous to
this, there was no dust, the brooks were full and rapid, a gentle breeze
agitated the leaves, the air was pure, the horizon free from clouds,
serenity reigned in the sky as in our hearts. Our dinner was prepared at
a peasant's house, and shared with him and his family, whose benedictions
we received. These poor Savoyards are the worthiest of people! After
dinner we regained the shade, and while I was picking up bits of dried
sticks, to boil our coffee, Madam de Warrens amused herself with
herbalizing among the bushes, and with the flowers I had gathered for her
in my way. She made me remark in their construction a thousand natural
beauties, which greatly amused me, and which ought to have given me a
taste for botany; but the time was not yet come, and my attention was
arrested by too many other studies. Besides this, an idea struck me,
which diverted my thoughts from flowers and plants: the situation of my
mind at that moment, all that we had said or done that day, every object
that had struck me, brought to my remembrance the kind of waking dream I
had at Annecy seven or eight years before, and which I have given an
account of in its place. The similarity was so striking that it affected
me even to tears: in a transport of tenderness I embraced Madam de
Warrens. "My dearest friend," said I, "this day has long since been
promised me: I can see nothing beyond it: my happiness, by your means,
is at its height; may it never decrease; may it continue as long as I am
sensible of its value-then it can only finish with my life."

Thus happily passed my days, and the more happily as I perceived nothing
that could disturb or bring them to a conclusion; not that the cause of
my former uneasiness had absolutely ceased, but I saw it take another
course, which I directed with my utmost care to useful objects, that the
remedy might accompany the evil. Madam de Warrens naturally loved the
country, and this taste did not cool while with me. By little and little
she contracted a fondness for rustic employments, wished to make the most
of her land, and had in that particular a knowledge which she practised