and a part of my regret in the situation to which I am reduced, is my being deprived of the means of rendering in future my attachment of my goddaughter useful to her and her parents.  Why am I, who am so sensible of the modest generosity of this bookseller, so little so of the noisy eagerness of many persons of the highest rank, who pompously fill the world with accounts of the services they say they wished to render me, but the good effects of which I never felt?  Is it their fault or mine?  Are they nothing more than vain; is my insensibility purely ingratitude?  Intelligent reader weigh and determine; for my part I say no more.

This pension was a great resource to Theresa and considerable alleviation to me, although I was far from receiving from it a direct advantage, any more than from the presents that were made her.

She herself has always disposed of everything.  When I kept her money I gave her a faithful account of it, without ever applying any part of the deposit to our common expenses, not even when she was richer than myself.  “What is mine is ours,” said I to her; “and what is thine is thine.”  I never departed from this maxim.  They who have had the baseness to accuse me of receiving by her hands that which I refused to take with mine, undoubtedly judged of my heart by their own, and knew but little of me.  I would willingly eat with her the bread she should have earned, but not that she should have had given her.  For a proof of this I appeal to herself, both now and hereafter, when, according to the course of nature, she shall have survived me.  Unfortunately, she understands but little of economy in any respect, and is, besides, careless and extravagant, not from vanity nor gluttony, but solely from negligence.  No creature is perfect here below, and since the excellent qualities must be accompanied with some detects; I prefer these to vices; although her defects are more prejudicial to us both.  The efforts I have made, as formerly I did for mamma, to accumulate something in advance which might some day be to her a never-failing resource, are not to be conceived; but my cares were always ineffectual.

Neither of these women ever called themselves to an account, and, notwithstanding all my efforts, everything I acquired was dissipated as fast as it came.  Notwithstanding the great simplicity of Theresa’s dress, the pension from Rey has never been sufficient to buy her clothes, and I have every year been under the necessity of adding something to it for that purpose.  We are neither of us born to be rich, and this I certainly do not reckon amongst our misfortunes.