I spent three hours in conversation with the charming girl and when I left her I was deeply in love.  As I went away, I told her that I envied the destiny of the man who would have her for his wife, and my compliment, the first she had ever received, made her blush.

After I had left her I began to examine the nature of my feelings towards her, and they frightened me, for I could neither behave towards Mdlle.  C——­ C——­ as an honest man nor as a libertine.  I could not hope to obtain her hand, and I almost fancied I would stab anyone who advised me to seduce her.  I felt that I wanted some diversion:  I went to the gaming-table.  Playing is sometimes an excellent lenitive to calm the mind, and to smother the ardent fire of love.  I played with wonderful luck, and I was going home with plenty of gold, when in a solitary narrow street I met a man bent down less by age than by the heavy weight of misery.  As I came near him I recognized Count Bonafede, the sight of whom moved me with pity.  He recognized me likewise.  We talked for some time, and at last he told me the state of abject poverty to which he was reduced, and the great difficulty he had to keep his numerous family.  “I do not blush,” he added, “in begging from you one sequin which will keep us alive for five or six days.”  I immediately gave him ten, trying to prevent him from lowering himself in his anxiety to express his gratitude, but I could not prevent him from shedding tears.  As we parted, he told me that what made him most miserable was to see the position of his daughter, who had become a great beauty, and would rather die than make a sacrifice of her virtue.  “I can neither support her in those feelings,” he said, with a sigh, “nor reward her for them.”

Thinking that I understood the wishes with which misery had inspired him, I took his address, and promised to pay him a visit.  I was curious to see what had become of a virtue of which I did not entertain a very high opinion.  I called the next day.  I found a house almost bare of furniture, and the daughter alone—­a circumstance which did not astonish me.  The young countess had seen me arrive, and received me on the stairs in the most amiable manner.  She was pretty well dressed, and I thought her handsome, agreeable, and lively, as she had been when I made her acquaintance in Fort St. Andre.  Her father having announced my visit, she was in high spirits, and she kissed me with as much tenderness as if I had been a beloved lover.  She took me to her own room, and after she had informed me that her mother was ill in bed and unable to see me, she gave way again to the transport of joy which, as she said, she felt in seeing me again.  The ardour of our mutual kisses, given at first under the auspices of friendship, was not long in exciting our senses to such an extent that in less than a quarter of an hour I had nothing more to desire.  When it was all over, it became us both, of course, to be, or at least to appear to be, surprised at what had