difficulty in extricating her, and she at length arrived at the Hermitage
in boots, making the place resound with her laughter, in which I most
heartily joined. She had to change everything. Theresa provided her
with what was necessary, and I prevailed upon her to forget her dignity
and partake of a rustic collation, with which she seemed highly
satisfied. It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so
mirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return. She did
not however put this project into execution until the next year: but,
alas! the delay was not favorable to me in anything.

I passed the autumn in an employment no person would suspect me of
undertaking: this was guarding the fruit of M. d'Epinay. The Hermitage
was the reservoir of the waters of the park of the Chevrette; there was a
garden walled round and planted with espaliers and other trees, which
produced M. d'Epinay more fruit than his kitchen-garden at the Chevrette,
although three-fourths of it were stolen from him. That I might not be a
guest entirely useless, I took upon myself the direction of the garden
and the inspection of the conduct of the gardener. Everything went on
well until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it
disappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of. The
gardener assured me it was the dormice which eat it all. I destroyed a
great number of these animals, notwithstanding which the fruit still
diminished. I watched the gardener's motions so narrowly, that I found
he was the great dormouse. He lodged at Montmorency, whence he came in
the night with his wife and children to take away the fruit he had
concealed in the daytime, and which he sold in the market at Paris as
publicly as if he had brought it from a garden of his own. The wretch
whom I loaded with kindness, whose children were clothed by Theresa, and
whose father, who was a beggar, I almost supported, robbed us with as
much ease as effrontery, not one of the three being sufficiently vigilant