“Oh! my dear Marcel, I begin really to get old,” said M. Hardy, with a smile, addressing M. de Blessac; “I feel more and more the want of being at home. To depart from my usual habits has become painful to me, and I execrate whatever obliges me to leave this happy little spot of ground.”
“And when I think,” answered M. de Blessac, unable to forbear blushing, “when I think, my friend, that you undertook this long journey only for my sake!—”
“Well, my dear Marcel! have you not just accompanied me in your turn, in an excursion which, without you, would have been as tiresome as it has been charming?”
“What a difference, my friend! I have contracted towards you a debt that I can never repay.”
“Nonsense, my dear Marcel! Between us, there are no distinctions of meum and tuum. Besides, in matters of friendship, it is as sweet to give as to receive.”
“Noble heart! noble heart!”
“Say, happy heart!—most happy, in the last affections for which it beats.”
“And who, gracious heaven! could deserve happiness on earth, if it be not you, my friend?”
“And to what do I owe that happiness? To the affections which I found here, ready to sustain me, when deprived of the support of my mother, who was all my strength, I felt myself (I confess my weakness) almost incapable of standing up against adversity.”
“You, my friend—with so firm and resolute a character in doing good—you, that I have seen struggle with so much energy and courage, to secure the triumph of some great and noble idea?”