“We will set to work,” said she; and her governess set a little table by her bed, and she gave me a piece of paper covered with questions tending to convince me that before I married her I should communicate to her my supposed science.  All these questions were artfully conceived, all were so worded as to force the oracle to order me to satisfy her, or to definitely forbid my doing so.  I saw the snare, and all my thoughts were how to avoid it, though I pretended to be merely considering the questions.  I could not make the oracle speak to please Esther, and I could still less make it pronounce a positive prohibition, as I feared that she would resent such an answer bitterly and revenge herself on me.  Nevertheless, I had to assume an indifferent air, and I got myself out of the difficulty by equivocal answers, till the good-humoured papa came to summon me to dinner.

He allowed his daughter to stay in bed on the condition that she was to do no more work, as he was afraid that by applying herself so intently she would increase her headache.  She promised, much to my delight, that he should be obeyed, but on my return from dinner I found her asleep, and sitting at her bedside I let her sleep on.

When she awoke she said she would like to read a little; and as if by inspiration, I chanced to take up Coiardeau’s ‘Heroides’, and we inflamed each other by reading the letters of Heloise and Abelard.  The ardours thus aroused passed into our talk and we began to discuss the secret which the oracle had revealed.

“But, Esther dear,” said I, “did not the oracle reveal a circumstance of which you knew perfectly well before?”

“No, sweetheart, the secret was perfectly unknown to me and would have continued unknown.”

“Then you have never been curious enough to inspect your own person?”

“However curious I may have been, nature placed that mole in such a position as to escape any but the most minute search.”

“You have never felt it, then?”

“It is too small to be felt.”

“I don’t believe it.”

She allowed my hand to wander indiscreetly, and my happy fingers felt all the precincts of the temple of love.  This was enough to fire the chastest disposition.  I could not find the object of my research, and, not wishing to stop short at so vain an enjoyment, I was allowed to convince myself with my eyes that it actually existed.  There, however, her concessions stopped short, and I had to content myself by kissing again and again all those parts which modesty no longer denied to my gaze.

Satiated with bliss, though I had not attained to the utmost of enjoyment, which she wisely denied me, after two hours had been devoted to those pastimes which lead to nothing, I resolved to tell her the whole truth and to shew her how I had abused her trust in me, though I feared that her anger would be roused.

Esther, who had a large share of intelligence (indeed if she had had less I could not have deceived her so well), listened to me without interrupting me and without any signs of anger or astonishment.  At last, when I had brought my long and sincere confession to an end, she said,