years began to corrupt our happy
innocence, mingle with our sports, and embitter our amusements. The
country itself, losing those sweet and simple charms which captivate the
heart, appeared a gloomy desert, or covered with a veil that concealed
its beauties. We cultivated our little gardens no more: our flowers were
neglected. We no longer scratched away the mould, and broke out into
exclamations of delight, on discovering that the grain we had sown began
to shoot. We were disgusted with our situation; our preceptors were
weary of us. In a word, my uncle wrote for our return, and we left Mr.
and Miss Lambercier without feeling any regret at the separation.

Near thirty years passed away from my leaving Bossey, without once
recalling the place to my mind with any degree of satisfaction; but after
having passed the prime of life, as I decline into old age (while more
recent occurrences are wearing out apace) I feel these remembrances
revive and imprint themselves on my heart, with a force and charm that
every day acquires fresh strength; as if, feeling life fleet from me,
I endeavored to catch it again by its commencement. The most trifling
incident of those happy days delight me, for no other reason than being
of those days. I recall every circumstance of time, place, and persons;
I see the maid or footman busy in the chamber, a swallow entering the
window, a fly settling on my hand while repeating my lessons. I see the
whole economy of the apartment; on the right hand Mr. Lambercier's
closet, with a print representing all the popes, a barometer, a large
almanac, the windows of the house (which stood in a hollow at the bottom
of the garden) shaded by raspberry shrubs, whose shoots sometimes found
entrance; I am sensible the reader has no occasion to know all this, but
I feel a kind of necessity for relating it. Why am I not permitted to
recount all the little anecdotes of that thrice happy age, at the
recollection of whose joys I ever tremble with delight? Five or six
particularly--let us compromise the matter--I will give up five, but
then I must have one, and only one, provided I may draw it out to its
utmost length, in order to prolong my satisfaction.

If I only sought yours, I should choose that of Miss Lambercier's
backside, which by an unlucky fall at the bottom of the meadow, was
exposed to the view of the King of Sardinia, who happened to be passing
by; but that of the walnut tree on the terrace is mo