Old Lecour, to denote his satisfaction at his son's return, brought forth his fiddle and played some of the merry airs of the Province, an action which touched Germain's heart.
"Is this the noble," exclaimed he to himself, as he looked, with a heart full of affection, at the roughly-dressed, homely figure, "whom I would produce to the Noailles, the Montmorencys and the Vaudreuils, as my father? Perhaps not; but I would offer him before sounder judges as their superior." But notwithstanding his goodwill, there is a limit where content is impossible in such things.
The Versailles élégant could not but see in everything about him an inevitable contrast with his late life. He felt unable to re-accustom himself to the low-ceiled chambers, the rude appliances, the rough dress, the country manners, the accent and phrases of his family—things in respect of which he had at one time believed them quite superior. Whole-heartedly concealing his impressions and his dejection, however, he made himself as pleasant as possible. Madame had thrown open her parlour, a rare occurrence.
When the rain began to beat against the windows, the old man called in the Indian dwarf, and with his assistance made a fire of logs which crackled merrily in the fireplace and threw cheerful, light and warmth upon the circle.
Madame lit her precious sconces of wax tapers for the first time since her daughter's wedding, and all drew closer to listen to the accounts which came from the lips of the long-absent son. The father put his violin aside, seated himself in his tall-backed arm-chair and gazed alternately into the fire and at his son's face. The mother hung upon her favourite's words and movements as mothers ever will. The convent girl, his youngest sister, worshipped him with eyes and ears—to her he was the hero of her family, whom she could measure in the lists against the vaunted brothers of her proud Quebec school-mates, Lanaudières, Bleurys, la Gorgendières, Tonnancours and those others, who, familiar with the doings of the Castle, looked down upon the trader's daughter.
"What about this new name?" said the mother at length; "they have given you a title in France?"
"Not at all, mother," he replied.
"But they call you 'Monsieur de Lincy,' you say."
"It is not a new name; it is the real one of the family—you are entitled to it as well as I."
"What does that mean, son Germain? Have we been ignorant of our own name?"