“‘Yes,’ he said.
“‘And your estates, dear Luigi. Are they restored to you?’ I next inquired, without one mercenary thought in my heart.
“‘Yes,’ he replied, with a curious smile. ‘Such as they are, my love and life, they are restored to me.’
“‘What do you mean?’ I questioned.
“‘That they were not worth keeping from me, my own. Yet, fear not. I am not without resources. We shall spend a gay month in Paris.’
“And so we did.
“We reached that city the next morning and took apartments at the ‘Splendide.’
“If to my rustic mind Brighton had been a delight Paris was now a rapture.
“‘Is there,’ I asked of Luigi, after only one day’s experience of the city—‘is there another place in all this world so heavenly as Paris?’
“He looked at me a few seconds in silence, and then replied, with more knowledge than his years could have promised: