The room we were shown into was very small, but clean and comfortable; a fire was lighted, and we found linen, clothes, and everything we needed.  “Why,” said Emile, in astonishment, “one would think they were expecting us.  The peasant was quite right; how kind and attentive, how considerate, and for strangers too!  I shall think I am living in the times of Homer.”  “I am glad you feel this,” said I, “but you need not be surprised; where strangers are scarce, they are welcome; nothing makes people more hospitable than the fact that calls upon their hospitality are rare; when guests are frequent there is an end to hospitality.  In Homer’s time, people rarely travelled, and travellers were everywhere welcome.  Very likely we are the only people who have passed this way this year.”  “Never mind,” said he, “to know how to do without guests and yet to give them a kind welcome, is its own praise.”

Having dried ourselves and changed our clothes, we rejoined the master of the house, who introduced us to his wife; she received us not merely with courtesy but with kindness.  Her glance rested on Emile.  A mother, in her position, rarely receives a young man into her house without some anxiety or some curiosity at least.

Supper was hurried forward on our account.  When we went into the dining-room there were five places laid; we took our seats and the fifth chair remained empty.  Presently a young girl entered, made a deep courtesy, and modestly took her place without a word.  Emile was busy with his supper or considering how to reply to what was said to him; he bowed to her and continued talking and eating.  The main object of his journey was as far from his thoughts as he believed himself to be from the end of his journey.  The conversation turned upon our losing our way.  “Sir,” said the master of the house to Emile, “you seem to be a pleasant well-behaved young gentleman, and that reminds me that your tutor and you arrived wet and weary like Telemachus and Mentor in the island of Calypso.”  “Indeed,” said Emile, “we have found the hospitality of Calypso.”  His Mentor added, “And the charms of Eucharis.”  But Emile knew the Odyssey and he had not read Telemachus, so he knew nothing of Eucharis.  As for the young girl, I saw she blushed up to her eyebrows, fixed her eyes on her plate, and hardly dared to breathe.  Her mother, noticing her confusion, made a sign to her father to turn the conversation.  When he talked of his lonely life, he unconsciously began to relate the circumstances which brought him into it; his misfortunes, his wife’s fidelity, the consolations they found in their marriage, their quiet, peaceful life in their retirement, and all this without a word of the young girl; it is a pleasing and a touching story, which cannot fail to interest.  Emile, interested and sympathetic, leaves off eating and listens.  When finally this best of men discourses with delight of the affection of the best of women, the young traveller,