Next morning, about eleven o’clock, my servant announced M. Louis de Franchi. I told the man to offer my visitor the papers and to say that I would wait on him as soon as I was dressed.
In five minutes I presented myself.
M. Louis do Franchi who was, no doubt from a sense of courtesy, reading a tale I had contributed to La Presse, raised his head as the door opened, and I entered.
I stood perfectly astounded at the resemblance between the two brothers. He rose.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I could scarcely credit my good fortune when I read your note yesterday on my return home. I have pictured you twenty times so as to assure myself that it was in accord with your portraits, and at last I, this morning, determined to present myself at your house without considering the hour, and I fear I have been too early.”
“I hope you will excuse me if I do not at once acknowledge your kindness in suitable terms, but may I inquire whether I have the honour to address M. Louis or M. Lucien de Franchi?”
“Are you serious? Yes, the resemblance is certainly wonderful, and when I was last at Sullacaro nearly every one mistook one of us for the other, yet, if he has not abjured the Corsican dress, you have seen him in a costume, which would make a considerable difference in our appearance.”
“And justly so,” I replied; “but as chance would have it, he was, when I left, dressed exactly as you are now, except that he wore white trowsers, so that I was not able to separate your presence from his memory with the difference in dress of which you speak, but,” I continued, taking the letter from my pocket-book, “I can quite understand you are anxious to have news from home, so pray read this which I would have left at your house yesterday had I not promised Madame de Franchi to give it to you myself.”
“They were all quite well when you left, I hope?”