s, were for this reason still more penetrating.

She was very timid, and I was as much so as herself. The connection
which this disposition common to both seemed to remove to a distance, was
however rapidly formed. Our landlady perceiving its progress, became
furious, and her brutality forwarded my affair with the young girl, who,
having no person in the house except myself to give her the least
support, was sorry to see me go from home, and sighed for the return of
her protector. The affinity our hearts bore to each other, and the
similarity of our dispositions, had soon their ordinary effect. She
thought she saw in me an honest man, and in this she was not deceived.
I thought I perceived in her a woman of great sensibility, simple in her
manners, and devoid of all coquetry:--I was no more deceived in her than
she in me. I began by declaring to her that I would never either abandon
or marry her. Love, esteem, artless sincerity were the ministers of my
triumph, and it was because her heart was tender and virtuous, that I was
happy without being presuming.

The apprehensions she was under of my not finding in her that for which I
sought, retarded my happiness more than every other circumstance. I
perceived her disconcerted and confused before she yielded her consent,
wishing to be understood and not daring to explain herself. Far from
suspecting the real cause of her embarrassment, I falsely imagined it to
proceed from another motive, a supposition highly insulting to her
morals, and thinking she gave me to understand my health might be exposed
to danger, I fell into so perplexed a state that, although it was no
restraint upon me, it poisoned my happiness during several days. As we
did not understand each other, our conversations upon this subject were
so many enigmas more than ridiculous. She was upon the point of
believing I was absolutely mad; and I on my part was as near not knowing
what else to think of her. At last we came to an explanation; she
confessed to me with tears the only fault of the kind of her whole life,
immediately after she became nubile; the fruit of her ignorance and the
address of her seducer. The moment I comprehended what she meant, I gave
a shout of joy. "A Hymen!" exclaimed I; "sought for at Paris, and at
twenty years of age! Ah my Theresa! I am happy in possessing thee,
virtuous and healthy as thou art, and in not finding that for which I
never sought."

At first amusement w