tural our
intimacy should be increased by leisure and solitude. This was the case
between Theresa and myself. We passed in conversations in the shade the
most charming and delightful hours, more so than any I had hitherto
enjoyed. She seemed to taste of this sweet intercourse more than I had
until then observed her to do; she opened her heart, and communicated to
me, relative to her mother and family, things she had had resolution
enough to conceal for a great length of time. Both had received from
Madam Dupin numerous presents, made them on my account, and mostly for
me, but which the cunning old woman, to prevent my being angry, had
appropriated to her own use and that of her other children, without
suffering Theresa to have the least share, strongly forbidding her to say
a word to me of the matter: an order the poor girl had obeyed with an
incredible exactness.

But another thing which surprised me more than this had done, was the
discovery that besides the private conversations Diderot and Grimm had
frequently had with both to endeavor to detach them from me, in which,
by means of the resistance of Theresa, they had not been able to succeed,
they had afterwards had frequent conferences with the mother, the subject
of which was a secret to the daughter. However, she knew little presents
had been made, and that there were mysterious goings backward and
forward, the motive of which was entirely unknown to her. When we left
Paris, Madam le Vasseur had long been in the habit of going to see Grimm
twice or thrice a month, and continuing with him for hours together, in
conversation so secret that the servant was always sent out of the room.

I judged this motive to be of the same nature with the project into which
they had attempted to make the daughter enter, by promising to procure
her and her mother, by means of Madam d'Epinay, a salt huckster's
license, or snuff-shop; in a word, by tempting her with the allurements
of gain. They had been told that, as I was not in a situation to do
anything for them, I could not, on their account, do anything for myself.
As in all this I saw nothing but good intentions, I was not absolutely
displeased with them for it. The mystery was the only thing which gave
me pain, especially on the part of the old woman, who moreover daily
became more parasitical and flattering towards me. This, however, did
not prevent her from reproaching her daughter in private with telling me
everyth