At the very first word, Giraud discovered me.  I must own this was not a difficult matter, for if sending a letter to young girls had not spoken sufficiently plain, my foolish embarrassed air would have betrayed me.  It will easily be supposed that the employment gave her little satisfaction, she undertook it, however, and performed it faithfully.  The next morning I ran to her house and found an answer ready for me.  How did I hurry away that I might have an opportunity to read and kiss it alone! though this need not been told, but the plan adopted by Mademoiselle Giraud (and in which I found more delicacy and moderation than I had expected) should.  She had sense enough to conclude that her thirty—­seven years, hare’s eyes, daubed nose, shrill voice, and black skin, stood no chance against two elegant young girls, in all the height and bloom of beauty; she resolved, therefore, nether to betray nor assist them, choosing rather to lose me entirely than entertain me for them.

As Merceret had not heard from her mistress for some time, she thought of returning to Fribourg, and the persuasions of Giraud determined her; nay more, she intimated it was proper someone should conduct her to her father’s and proposed me.  As I happened to be agreeable to little Merceret, she approved the idea, and the same day they mentioned it to me as a fixed point.  Finding nothing displeasing in the manner they had disposed of me, I consented, thinking it could not be above a week’s journey at most; but Giraud, who had arranged the whole affair, thought otherwise.  It was necessary to avow the state of my finances, and the conclusion was, that Merceret should defray my expenses; but to retrench on one hand what was expended on the other, I advised that her little baggage should be sent on before, and that we should proceed by easy journeys on foot.

I am sorry to have so many girls in love with me, but as there is nothing to be very vain of in the success of these amours, I think I may tell the truth without scruple.  Merceret, younger and less artful than Giraud, never made me so many advances, but she imitated my manners, my actions, repeated my words, and showed me all those little attentions I ought to have had for her.  Being very timorous, she took great care that we should both sleep in the same chamber; a circumstance that usually produces some consequences between a lad of twenty and a girl of twenty —­five.

For once, however, it went no further; my simplicity being such, that though Merceret was by no means a disagreeable girl, an idea of gallantry never entered my head, and even if it had, I was too great a novice to have profited by it.  I could not imagine how two young persons could bring themselves to sleep together, thinking that such familiarity must require an age of preparation.  If poor Merceret paid my expenses in hopes of any return, she was terribly cheated, for we arrived at Fribourg exactly as we had quitted Annecy.