And now I began to live.  All around me was changed from a dull uniformity to the brightest scene of joy and delight.  The happiness I enjoyed in the company of my father far exceeded my sanguine expectations.  We were for ever together; and the subjects of our conversations were inexhaustible.  He had passed the sixteen years of absence among nations nearly unknown to Europe; he had wandered through Persia, Arabia and the north of India and had penetrated among the habitations of the natives with a freedom permitted to few Europeans.  His relations of their manners, his anecdotes and descriptions of scenery whiled away delicious hours, when we were tired of talking of our own plans of future life.

The voice of affection was so new to me that I hung with delight upon his words when he told me what he had felt concerning me during these long years of apparent forgetfulness.  “At first”—­said he, “I could not bear to think of my poor little girl; but afterwards as grief wore off and hope again revisited me I could only turn to her, and amidst cities and desarts her little fairy form, such as I imagined it, for ever flitted before me.  The northern breeze as it refreshed me was sweeter and more balmy for it seemed to carry some of your spirit along with it.  I often thought that I would instantly return and take you along with me to some fertile island where we should live at peace for ever.  As I returned my fervent hopes were dashed by so many fears; my impatience became in the highest degree painful.  I dared not think that the sun should shine and the moon rise not on your living form but on your grave.  But, no, it is not so; I have my Mathilda, my consolation, and my hope.”—­

My father was very little changed from what he described himself to be before his misfortunes.  It is intercourse with civilized society; it is the disappointment of cherished hopes, the falsehood of friends, or the perpetual clash of mean passions that changes the heart and damps the ardour of youthful feelings; lonly wanderings in a wild country among people of simple or savage manners may inure the body but will not tame the soul, or extinguish the ardour and freshness of feeling incident to youth.  The burning sun of India, and the freedom from all restraint had rather encreased the energy of his character:  before he bowed under, now he was impatient of any censure except that of his own mind.  He had seen so many customs and witnessed so great a variety of moral creeds that he had been obliged to form an independant one for himself which had no relation to the peculiar notions of any one country:  his early prejudices of course influenced his judgement in the formation of his principles, and some raw colledge ideas were strangely mingled with the deepest deductions of his penetrating mind.