that pleasing habit of affectionate sentiments with which she inspired me.  I dare affirm, that those who only love, do not feel the most charming sensations we are capable of:  I am acquainted with another sentiment, less impetuous, but a thousand times more delightful; sometimes joined with love, but frequently separated from it.  This feeling is not simply friendship; it is more enchanting, more tender; nor do I imagine it can exist between persons of the same sex; at least I have been truly a friend, if ever a man was, and yet never experienced it in that kind.  This distinction is not sufficiently clear, but will become so hereafter:  sentiments are only distinguishable by their effects.

Madam de Warrens inhabited an old house, but large enough to have a handsome spare apartment, which she made her drawing-room.  I now occupied this chamber, which was in the passage I have before mentioned as the place of our first meeting.  Beyond the brook and gardens was a prospect of the country, which was by no means uninteresting to the young inhabitant, being the first time, since my residence at Bossey, that I had seen anything before my windows but walls, roofs, or the dirty street.  How pleasing then was this novelty! it helped to increase the tenderness of my disposition, for I looked on this charming landscape as the gift of my dear patroness, who I could almost fancy had placed it there on purpose for me.  Peaceably seated, my eyes pursued her amidst the flowers and the verdure; her charms seemed to me confounded with those of the spring; my heart, till now contracted, here found means to expand itself, and my sighs exhaled freely in this charming retreat.

The magnificence I had been accustomed to at Turin was not to be found at Madam de Warrens, but in lieu of it there was neatness, regularity, and a patriarchal abundance, which is seldom attached to pompous ostentation.  She had very little plate, no china, no game in her kitchen, or foreign wines in her cellar, but both were well furnished, and at every one’s service; and her coffee, though served in earthenware cups, was excellent.  Whoever came to her house was invited to dine there, and never did laborer, messenger, or traveller, depart without refreshment.  Her family consisted of a pretty chambermaid from Fribourg, named Merceret; a valet from her own country called Claude Anet (of whom I shall speak hereafter), a cook, and two hired chairmen when she visited, which seldom happened.  This was a great deal to be done out of two thousand livres a year; yet, with good management, it might have been sufficient in a country where land is extremely good, and money very scarce.  Unfortunately, economy was never her favorite virtue; she contracted debts—­paid them—­thus her money passed from hand to hand like a weaver’s shuttle, and quickly disappeared.