One circumstance, however, greatly facilitated the instruction of this teacher:  he had two daughters, both pretty, and both not yet twenty.  Having been instructed in this art from their youth upwards, they showed themselves very skilful, and might have been able, as partners, soon to help even the most clumsy scholars into some cultivation.  They were both very polite, spoke nothing but French; and I, on my part, did my best, that I might not appear awkward or ridiculous before them.  I had the good fortune that they likewise praised me, and were always willing to dance a minuet to their father’s little violin, and, what indeed was more difficult for them, to initiate me by degrees into waltzing and whirling.  Their father did not seem to have many customers, and they led a lonely life.  For this reason they often asked me to remain with them after my hour, and to chat away the time a little, which I the more willingly did, as the younger one pleased me well; and generally they both altogether behaved very becomingly.  I often read aloud something from a novel, and they did the same.  The elder, who was as handsome as, perhaps even handsomer than, the second, but who did not correspond with my taste so well as the latter, always conducted herself towards me more obligingly, and more kindly in every respect.  She was always at hand during the lesson, and often protracted it:  hence I sometimes thought myself bound to offer back a couple of tickets to her father, which, however, he did not accept.  The younger, on the contrary, although never showing me any ill will, was more reserved, and waited till she was called by her father before she relieved the elder.

The cause of this became manifest to me one evening; for when, after the dance was done, I was about to go into the sitting-room with the elder, she held me back, and said, “Let us remain here a little longer; for I will confess to you that my sister has with her a woman who tells fortunes from cards, and who is to reveal to her how matters stand with an absent lover, on whom her whole heart hangs, and upon whom she has placed all her hope.  Mine is free,” she continued, “and I must accustom myself to see it despised.”  I thereupon said sundry pretty things to her, replying that she could at once convince herself on that point by consulting the wise woman likewise; that I would do so myself, for I had long wished to learn something of the kind, but lacked faith.  She blamed me for this, and assured me that nothing in the world was surer than the responses of this oracle; only it must be consulted, not out of sport and mischief, but solely in real affairs.  However, I at last compelled her to go with me into that room, as soon as she had ascertained that the consultation was over.  We found her sister in a very cheerful humor:  and even towards me she was kinder than usual, sportive, and almost witty; for, since she seemed to be secure of an absent friend, she may have thought it no treachery to be a little