Catherine's first impulse was to take her child in her arms, and, placing her in mine, she said, with great emotion, "Is she not now your Irene also?"
And amid her tears her eyes shone with joy and gratitude.
There are emotions which one cannot attempt to describe, for they are as vast as the infinite.
This first outburst of happiness passed, Madame de Fersen said to me, "Now I must show you to your apartment."
I offered Catherine my arm, Irene took my hand, and allowed them to lead me.
For some time we kept silent.
After following a long avenue, rapidly becoming dark as the sun sank below the horizon, we came to a clearing on the outskirts of the wood.
"Here is your cottage," said Madame de Fersen.
My cottage was a sort of Swiss chalet, half hidden in a mass of pink acacias, of linden-trees and lilacs. It was built on the edge of a small lake, on a foundation of great boulders of that flinty rock found in the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. This structure having been erected as a point of observation, every advantage had been taken to make the most of its charming position.
A thick carpet of periwinkles, of ivy, of moss, and wild strawberry covered almost entirely the whitish rocks, and from each cranny sprouted a tuft of iris, of rhododendron, or heather.