"Indeed? How I envy you."
"Yes, I am really going, and I am counting the days until it is time to sail. But, mademoiselle, I am forgetting to show you M. Bois-le-Duc's letter. I have it with me; shall I leave it here?"
"No, M. Lacroix. I am very lazy this afternoon, and if you would read it to me while I just sit in this comfortable arm-chair and do nothing but listen, I should enjoy that above all things."
"Certainly, mademoiselle; nothing would please me better. I imagine your days of laziness, as you call it, are few and far between. Now, I will begin. The letter is dated Father Point, April 20th, 1887:—
"My Dear Eugène,
"I was very pleased to receive your last letter, and more than pleased to hear of your success; but the news that delighted me most of all was to hear that you were coming here this summer.
"What you tell me about my brother is very satisfactory; I knew he would be kind to you. I like to think of you as you describe yourself sitting in the great hall of the Hôtel Bois-le-Duc, in Paris, where I spent so many happy days. I knew you and the marquise would have many subjects in common, and, as you say, she is one of the ladies of the old school, now alas! past, yet she can sympathize with Bohemianism, provided that talent is allied with it. She is a woman good as she is charming, and highly cultivated. True, I have not seen my sister-in-law for years, but her letters to me are as clever and interesting as those of Madame de Stael, and I know from them how her mind, instead of being dimmed with advancing years, has developed with every day.
"Your description of the old garden, with its rippling fountains and quaint parterres, reminds me of the days of my youth, when my mother gave her receptions there. Yes, my dear pupil, the halls of that old house and the old-fashioned garden have been the scene of many gay gatherings in the olden time, when France had a true aristocracy. And not only stately dames and courtiers thronged to the Hôtel Bois-le-Duc, but the foremost minds of the day lent brilliancy to my mother's salons. Wits, authors, poets, artists, statesmen, whose words could change the fate of Europe, were proud to call the marquise friend. I am an old man now, and you must forgive an old man's prosiness; but a little sadness comes into my thoughts when I muse on the past. How many of those illustrious souls, then so full of life and power, remain? And I, long exiled from all I cherished, how have I progressed? No, no, Eugène; not even to you would I complain. What has a faithful follower of the Cross to do with the vanities of this world?
"It is one of my temptations, still, to think on what might have been had I not chosen the hard road, had I not renounced the gay world and its fascinations, for it had, and has fascinations yet for me. Eugène, my reward will be hereafter; but, as an old man, and one who has endeavored to do his duty for many years, I often wonder whether I mistook my vocation. But away with such doubts, they are a snare of the arch-enemy himself, a subtle snare.
"My dear pupil, hard as it was to let you go, I am glad you left me. I knew those years of labor must tell in the end. I knew so much zeal could not be thrown away.