we saw through her feigned simplicity, but she pretended
not to do so as it was to her own advantage. Who could have instructed
her in the arts of deceit? Nobody; only her natural wit, less rare in
childhood than in youth, but always rare and astonishing. Her mother said
her simplicities shewed that she would one day be very intelligent, and
her father maintained that they were signs of her stupidity. But if Sara
had been stupid, our bursts of laughter would have disconcerted her; and
she would have died for shame, instead of appearing all the better
pleased when her father deplored her stupidity. She would affect
astonishment, and by way of curing one sort of stupidity she corroborated
it by displaying another. She asked us questions to which we could not
reply, and laughed at her instead, although it was evident that before
putting such questions she must have reasoned over them. She might have
rejoined that the stupidity was on our side, but by so doing she would
have betrayed herself.

Lebel did not reply to his sweetheart, but M. de Chavigni wrote me a
letter of four pages. He spoke like a philosopher and an experienced man
of the world.

He shewed me that if I were an old man like him, and able to insure a
happy and independent existence to my sweetheart after my death, I should
do well to keep her from all men, especially as there was so perfect a
sympathy between us; but that as I was a young man, and did not intend to
bind myself to her by the ties of marriage, I should not only consent to
a union which seemed for her happiness, but that as a man of honour it
was my duty to use my influence with her in favour of the match. "With
your experience," said the kind old gentleman, "you ought to know that a
time would come when you would regret both having lost this opportunity,
for your love is sure to become friendship, and then another love will
replace that which you now think as firm as the god Terminus.

"Lebel," he added, "has told me his plans, and far from disapproving, I
have encouraged him, for your charming friend won my entire esteem in the
five or six times I had the pleasure of seeing her with you. I shall be
delighted, therefore, to have her in my house, where I can enjoy her
conversation without transgressing the laws of propriety. Nevertheless,
you will understand that at my age I have formed no desires, for I could
not satisfy them even if their object were propitious." He ended by
telling me tha