Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/187

 fancied it would prove the more auspicious to their designs. With inward reluctance I embraced all the plans they proposed to divert me, and make me forget as they called him a treacherous, dissipated husband. A light fort of sprightliness, which I never suffered to border on petulance, gave a varnish of nature to my new modelled deportment, and fortified them in their presumption, while it gave me hopes of seizing some lucky moment, when being less guarded, I might deceive their vigilance and give them the slip.

"Meanwhile a crowd of very gay ladies and gentlemen came to pay me frequent visits. At last they persuaded me to accompany them on a nightly excursion to an adjacent manor-house, which, on my arrival, they told me, was destined to be my temporary residence. The locality was, indeed, charming, and the garden large and arranged with taste. Walking became, therefore, my principal pastime and amusement. Although I never was without company, or at least without attendants, who kept an eye upon