I passed from his arms to those of my mother, and then to my sister’s.  Whatever might come and go, I could not but feel that there was an indefinable bliss and bien-etre in their very presence!  It was home—­coming home—­more true content and rest than I had felt since that fatal day at Nancy.

My mother was enchanted with her grandson, and knew how to welcome Madame d’Aubepine as one of the family, since she was of course to reside with us.  The Abbe also was most welcome to my mother.

How we all looked at one another, to find the old beings we had loved, and to learn the new ones we had become!  My mother was of course the least altered; indeed, to my surprise, she was more embonpoint than before, instead of having the haggard worn air that I had expected, and though she wept at first, she was soon again smiling.

Eustace, Baron Walwyn and Ribaumont, as he now unfortunately had become, sat by me.  He was much taller than when we had parted, for had not then reached his full height, and he looked the taller from being very thin.  His moustache and pointed beard had likewise changed him, but there was clear bright colour on his cheek, and his dear brown eyes shone upon me with their old sweetness; so that it was not till we had been together some little time that I found that the gay merry lad whom I had left had become not only a man, but a very grave and thoughtful man.

Annora was a fine creature, well grown, and with the clearest, freshest complexion, of the most perfect health, yet so pure and delicate, that one looked at her like a beautiful flower; but it somehow struck me that she had a discontented and almost defiant expression.  She seemed to look at me with a sort of distrust, and to be with difficulty polite to Madame d’Aubepine, while she was almost rude to the Abbe.  She scarcely uttered a word of French, and made a little cry and gesture of disgust, when Gaspard replied to her in his native tongue, poor child.

She was the chief disappointment to me.  I had expected to find, not indeed my little playfellow, but my own loving sister Nan; and this young lady was like a stranger.  I thought, too, my mother would have been less lively, she seemed to me to have forgotten everything in the satisfaction of being at Paris.  At first I feared she was looking at me with displeasure, but presently I observed that she had discarded her widow’s veil, and looked annoyed that I still wore mine.  Otherwise she was agreeable surprised in me, and turned to M. de Solivet, saying: 

’Yes, my son, you are right, she is belle, assez belle; and when she is dressed and has no more that provincial air, she will do very well.’

It was Eustace, my brother, who gave me unmixed delight that evening, unmixed save for his look of delicate health, for that he should be graver was only suitable to my feelings, and we knew that we were in perfect sympathy with one another whenever our eyes met, as of old, while we had hardly exchanged a word.  And then, how gracious and gentle he was with poor little Madame d’Aubepine, who looked up to him like a little violet at the food of a poplar tree!