Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/81

This page needs to be proofread.

every morning to pay her duty to him. If a real woman (said I to myself), she will be glad of an opportunity to communicate a secret. I accordingly watched for her the next day: she came as I expected; but, instead of letting her enter the cottage, I prevailed on her to take a walk with me. I soon introduced the subject I wished to converse about.

'Your father, my dear (said I), informs me that my Lord is a great friend to the family you live with.'

'Ah, Mr. Claude (cried she), those who imagine he is a friend to the family are sadly mistaken; it would have been a happy thing he had never entered it.'

'Why, my soul (asked I), has he stole away the heart of one of the young ladies?'

She shook her head;—"'It does not become me to tell family secrets.'

'No, to be sure (said I), not to strangers; but to a person you know so well as you do me, there is not the least harm in the world in telling them.'