Kiss this welcome letter, and leap for joy at the news I am going to tell you: but be assured that though my emotions should prove less violent, I am not a whit less rejoiced. My father being obliged to go to Bern on account of a law suit, and from thence to Soleure for his pension, proposes to take my mother along with him, to which she is the more willing to consent, as she hopes to receive benefit from the journey and change of air. They were so obliging as to offer to take me along with them. I did not think proper to say all I thought on the occasion; but their not being able to find convenient room for me made them change their intentions with respect to my going, and they are now all endeavouring to comfort me for the disappointment. I was obliged to assume a very melancholy air, as if almost inconsolable; and, ridiculous as it is, I have dissembled so long, that I am sometimes apt to fancy I feel a real sorrow. I am not however to be absolutely my own mistress while my parents are absent, but to live at my uncle’s; so that during the whole time I shall be always with my _constant_ cousin. My mother choses to leave her own woman behind; Bab, therefore, will be considered as a kind of governess to me. But we need not be very apprehensive of those whom we have no need either to bribe or to trust, but who may be easily got rid of whenever they grow troublesome, by means of any trifling allurement. You will readily conceive, I dare say, what opportunities we shall have of meeting during their absence; but our discretion must furnish those restraints, which our situation has taken off for a while, and we must then voluntarily submit to that reserve, to which at present we are obliged by sad necessity. You must, when I am at my cousin’s, come no oftener than you did before, for fear of giving her offence, and I hope there will be no need of reminding you of the assiduous respect and civility, which her sex and the sacred laws of hospitality require; and that you yourself will sufficiently consider what is due to the friendship that gives an asylum to your love. I know your eager disposition; but I am convinced, at the same time, that there are bounds which can restrain it. Had you never governed your violence by the known laws of honour, you had not been troubled at present with any admonitions, at least with none from me.