Venture took care to augment their differences, though under an appearance of doing the direct contrary, throwing out in a distant manner, and provincial accents, hints that produced the utmost effect, and furnished such scenes as were sufficient to make any one die with laughter.

Thus the mornings passed without our thinking of them; at two or three o'clock we took some refreshment.

Venture then went to his various engagements, where he supped, while I walked alone, meditating on his great merit, coveting and admiring his rare talents, and cursing my own unlucky stars, that did not call me to so happy a life.

How little did I then know of myself! mine had been a thousand times more delightful, had I not been such a fool, or known better how to enjoy it.
Madam de Warrens had taken no one with her but Anet: Merceret, the chambermaid, whom I have before mentioned, still remained in the house.
Merceret was something older than myself, not pretty, but tolerably agreeable; good-natured, free from malice, having no fault to my knowledge but being a little refractory with her mistress.

I often went to see her; she was an old acquaintance, who recalled to my remembrance one more beloved, and this made her dear to me.