July 10.

You should see how foolish I look in company when her name is mentioned, particularly when I am asked plainly how I like her.  How I like her!  I detest the phrase.  What sort of creature must he be who merely liked Charlotte, whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by her.  Like her!  Some one asked me lately how I liked Ossian.

July 11.

Madame M—­ is very ill.  I pray for her recovery, because Charlotte shares my sufferings.  I see her occasionally at my friend’s house, and to-day she has told me the strangest circumstance.  Old M—­ is a covetous, miserly fellow, who has long worried and annoyed the poor lady sadly; but she has borne her afflictions patiently.  A few days ago, when the physician informed us that her recovery was hopeless, she sent for her husband (Charlotte was present), and addressed him thus:  “I have something to confess, which, after my decease, may occasion trouble and confusion.  I have hitherto conducted your household as frugally and economically as possible, but you must pardon me for having defrauded you for thirty years.  At the commencement of our married life, you allowed a small sum for the wants of the kitchen, and the other household expenses.  When our establishment increased and our property grew larger, I could not persuade you to increase the weekly allowance in proportion:  in short, you know, that, when our wants were greatest, you required me to supply everything with seven florins a week.  I took the money from you without an observation, but made up the weekly deficiency from the money-chest; as nobody would suspect your wife of robbing the household bank.  But I have wasted nothing, and should have been content to meet my eternal Judge without this confession, if she, upon whom the management of your establishment will devolve after my decease, would be free from embarrassment upon your insisting that the allowance made to me, your former wife, was sufficient.”

I talked with Charlotte of the inconceivable manner in which men allow themselves to be blinded; how any one could avoid suspecting some deception, when seven florins only were allowed to defray expenses twice as great.  But I have myself known people who believed, without any visible astonishment, that their house possessed the prophet’s never-failing cruse of oil.

July 13.

No, I am not deceived.  In her dark eyes I read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes.  Yes, I feel it; and I may believe my own heart which tells me —­ dare I say it? —­ dare I pronounce the divine words? —­ that she loves me!

That she loves me!  How the idea exalts me in my own eyes!  And, as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour myself since she loves me!

Is this presumption, or is it a consciousness of the truth?  I do not know a man able to supplant me in the heart of Charlotte; and yet when she speaks of her betrothed with so much warmth and affection, I feel like the soldier who has been stripped of his honours and titles, and deprived of his sword.