at that time used to declare that she had “changed very much,” which with them meant that she had greatly deteriorated.  Beauty, however, is like a temple in which the profane see naught but the external magnificence.  The divine mystery of the artist’s thought reveals itself only to profound sympathy, and the inspiration in each detail of the sublime work remains unseen by the eyes of the vulgar.  One of your modern authors, I fancy, has said this in other words and much better.  As for myself, at no moment in her life did I find Edmee less beautiful than at any other.  Even in the hours of suffering, when beauty in its material sense seems obliterated, hers but assumed a divine form in my eyes, and in her face I beheld the splendour of a new moral beauty.  However, I am but indifferently endowed with artistic feeling, and had I been a painter, I could not have created more than a single type, that which filled my whole soul; for in the course of my long life only one woman has seemed to me really beautiful; and that woman was Edmee.

For a few seconds I stood looking at her, so touchingly pale, sad yet calm, a living image of filial piety, of power in thrall to affection.  Then I rushed forward and fell at her feet without being able to say a word.  She uttered no cry, no exclamation of surprise, but took my head in her two arms and held it for some time pressed to her bosom.  In this strong pressure, in this silent joy I recognised the blood of my race, I felt the touch of a sister.  The good chevalier, who had waked with a start, stared at us in astonishment, his body bent forward and his elbow resting on his knee; then he said: 

“Well, well!  What is the meaning of this?”

He could not see my face, hidden as it was in Edmee’s breast.  She pushed me towards him; and the old man clasped me in his feeble arms with a burst of generous affection that gave him back for a moment the vigour of youth.

I leave you to imagine the questions with which I was overwhelmed, and the attentions that were lavished on me.  Edmee was a veritable mother to me.  Her unaffected kindness and confidence savoured so much of heaven that throughout the day I could not think of her otherwise than if I had really been her son.

I was very much touched at the pleasure they took in preparing a big surprise for the abbe; I saw in this a sure proof of the delight he would feel at my return.  They made me hide under Edmee’s frame, and covered me with the large green cloth that was generally thrown over her work.  The abbe sat down quite close to me, and I gave a shout and seized him by the legs.  This was a little practical joke that I used to play on him in the old days.  When, throwing aside the frame, and sending the balls of wool rolling over the floor, I came out from my hiding-place, the expression of terror and delight on his face was most quaint.

But I will spare you all these family scenes to which my memory goes back too readily.