and which made a great impression on me. We did not play like children. She immediately asked me what my lessons were, if I knew any foreign languages, and if I went often to the play. When I said I had only been three or four times, she exclaimed, and promised that we should often go together, and when we came home write down an account of the piece. It was her habit, she said; and, in short, we were to write to each other every day. "We entered the drawing-room. Near the arm-chair of madame Necker was the stool of her daughter, who was obliged to sit very upright. As soon as she had taken her accustomed place, three or four old gentlemen came up and spoke to her with the utmost kindness. One of them, in a little round wig, took her hands in his, held them a long time, and entered into conversation with her as if she had been twenty. This was the abbé Raynal; the others were Messrs. Thomas, Marmontel, the marquis de Pesay, and the baron de Grimm. We sat down to table. It was a picture to see how mademoiselle Necker listened. She did not speak herself; but so animated was her face that she appeared to converse with all. Her eyes followed the looks and movements of those who talked: it seemed as if she guessed their ideas before they were expressed. She entered into every subject; even politics, which at this epoch was one of the most engrossing topics of conversation. After dinner, a good deal of company arrived. Each guest, as he approached madame Necker, addressed her daughter with some compliment or pleasantry: she replied to all with ease and grace. They delighted to attack and embarrass her, and to excite her childish imagination, which was already brilliant. The cleverest men were those who took greatest pleasure in making her talk. They asked her what she was reading, recommended new books, and gave her a taste for study by conversing concerning what she knew, or on what she was ignorant." Thus this extraordinary woman imbibed, as it were with her mother's milk, a taste for society and display. She learnt to take intense pleasure in the communication of ideas with intelligent men, and in sharing in the sparkling wit that gathered round her. She enjoyed the excitement of spirits that results from the sense of expressing her thoughts, and at the same time having the sphere enlarged by the instant interchange with others. The sensations of success in society, of praise and reputation, were familiar to her in childhood, and no wonder they became as necessary as her daily bread in after years.