he gave me a most friendly reception,
and introduced me to two very pretty girls who were boarding with her.
They might have interested me if I had been stopping long in Geneva, but
as if was Helen claimed all my attraction.

"To-morrow," said the charming girl, "I shall be able to get a word with
you at Madame Tronchin's dinner, and I expect Hedvig will have hit on
some way for you to satisfy your desires."

The banker gave us an excellent dinner. He proudly told me that no
inn-keeper could give such a good dinner as a rich gentleman who has a
good cook, a good cellar, good silver plate, and china of the best
quality. We were twenty of us at table, and the feast was given chiefly
in honour of the learned theologian and myself, as a rich foreigner who
spent money freely. M. de Ximenes, who had just arrived from Ferney was
there, and told me that M. de Voltaire was expecting me, but I had
foolishly determined not to go.

Hedvig shone in solving the questions put to her by the company. M. de
Ximenes begged her to justify as best she could our first mother, who had
deceived her husband by giving him the fatal apple to eat.

"Eve," she said, "did not deceive her husband, she only cajoled him into
eating it in the hope of giving him one more perfection. Besides Eve had
not been forbidden to eat the fruit by God, but only by Adam, and in all
probability her woman's sense prevented her regarding the prohibition as
serious."

At this reply, which I found full of sense and wit, two scholars from
Geneva and even Hedvig's uncle began to murmur and shake their heads.
Madame Tronchin said gravely that Eve had received the prohibition from
God himself, but the girl only answered by a humble "I beg your pardon,
madam." At this she turned to the pastor with a frightened manner, and
said,--

"What do you say to this?"

"Madam, my niece is not infallible."

"Excuse me, dear uncle, I am as infallible as Holy Writ when I speak
according to it."

"Bring a Bible, and let me see."

"Hedvig, my dear Hedvig, you are right after all. Here it is. The
prohibition was given before woman was made."

Everybody applauded, but Hedvig remained quite calm; it was only the two
scholars and Madame Tronchin who still seemed disturbed. Another lady
then asked her if it was allowable to believe the history of the apple to
be symbolical. She replied,--

"I do not think so, because it could only be a symbol of sexual union,
and it is clear that