she wished to preserve his esteem, and avoid the just remonstrances he
sometimes took the liberty to make her, by representing that she
squandered the property of others as well as her own. I thought as he
did, nay, I even sometimes expressed myself to the same effect, but had
not an equal ascendancy over her, and my advice did not make the same
impression. On his decease, I was obliged to occupy his place, for which
I had as little inclination as abilities, and therefore filled it ill.
I was not sufficiently careful, and so very timid, that though I
frequently found fault to myself, I saw ill-management without taking
courage to oppose it; besides, though I acquired an equal share of
respect, I had not the same authority. I saw the disorder that
prevailed, trembled at it, sometimes complained, but was never attended
to. I was too young and lively to have any pretensions to the exercise
of reason, and when I would have acted the reformer, Madam de Warrens
calling me her little Mentor, with two or three playful slaps on the
cheek, reduced me to my natural thoughtlessness. Notwithstanding,
an idea of the certain distress in which her ill-regulated expenses,
sooner or later, must necessarily plunge her, made a stronger impression
on me since I had become the inspector of her household, and had a better
opportunity of calculating the inequality that subsisted between her
income and her expenses. I even date from this period the beginning of
that inclination to avarice which I have ever since been sensible of.
I was never foolishly prodigal, except by intervals; but till then I was
never concerned whether I had much or little money. I now began to pay
more attention to this circumstance, taking care of my purse, and
becoming mean from a laudable motive; for I only sought to insure Madam
de Warrens some resources against that catastrophe which I dreaded the
approach of. I feared her creditors would seize her pension or that it
might be discontinued and she reduced to want, when I foolishly imagined
that the trifle I could save might be of essential service to her; but to