session of a rather
lively conversation on this particular point, while I was still very
young, with a prude, whom an adventure of some brilliancy unmasked. I
was inexperienced then, and I was in the habit of judging others with
that severity which every one is disposed to manifest until some
personal fault has made us more indulgent toward our neighbors. I had
considered it proper to blame the conduct of this woman without mercy.
She heard of it. I sometimes saw her at an aunt's, and made
preparations to attack her morals. Before I had an opportunity she
took the matter into her own hands, by taking me aside one day, and
compelled me to submit to the following harangue, which I confess made
a deep impression in my memory:

"It is not for the purpose of reproaching you for the talk you have
been making on my account, that I wish to converse with you in the
absence of witnesses," she explained, "it is to give you some advice,
the truth and solidity of which you will one day appreciate.

"You have seen fit to censure my conduct with a severity, you have
actually treated me with a disdain, which tells me how proud you are
of the fact that you have never been taken advantage of. You believe
in your own virtue and that it will never abandon you. This is a pure
illusion of your amour propre, my dear child, and I feel impelled to
enlighten your inexperience, and to make you understand, that far from
being sure of that virtue which renders you so severe, you are not
even sure that you have any at all. This prologue astonishes you, eh?
Well, listen with attention, and you will soon be convinced of the
truth whereof I speak.

"Up to the present time, nobody has ever spoken to you of love. Your
mirror alone has told you that you are beautiful. Your heart, I can
see by the appearance of indifference that envelops you like a
mantle, has not yet been developed. As long as you remain as you are,
as long as you can be kept in sight as you are, I will be your
guarantee. But when your heart has spoken, when your enchanting eyes
shall have received life and expression from sentiment, when they
shall speak the language of love, when an internal unrest shall
agitate your breast, when, in fine, desire, half stifled by the
scruples of a good education, shall have made you blush more than once
in secret, then your sensibility, through the combats by which you
will attempt to vanquish it, will diminish your severity toward
others, and their