The Lady de Tilly knew the weakness of her faithful old servitor, and although she smiled to herself, she would not hurt his feelings by entering the house before he was ready at his post to receive her. She continued walking about the lawn conversing with Amélie, Pierre, and Le Gardeur, until she saw old Felix with his wand and livery standing at the door, when, taking Pierre's arm, she led the way into the house.
The folding doors were open, and Felix with his wand walked before his lady and her companions into the mansion. They entered without delay, for the day had been warm, and the ladies were weary after sitting several hours in a canoe, a mode of travelling which admits of very little change of position in the voyagers.
The interior of the Manor House of Tilly presented the appearance of an old French château. A large hall with antique furniture occupied the center of the house, used occasionally as a court of justice when the Seigneur de Tilly exercised his judicial office for the trial of offenders, which was very rarely, thanks to the good morals of the people, or held a cour plenière of his vassals, on affairs of the seigniory for apportioning the corvées for road-making and bridge-building, and, not the least important by any means, for the annual feast to his censitaires on the day of St. Michael de Thury.
From this hall, passages led into apartments and suites of rooms arranged for use, comfort, and hospitality. The rooms were of all sizes, panelled, tapestried, and furnished in a style of splendor suited to the wealth and dignity of the Seigneurs of Tilly. A stair of oak, broad enough for a section of grenadiers to march up it abreast, led to the upper chambers, bedrooms, and boudoirs, which looked out of old mullioned windows upon the lawn and gardens that surrounded the house, affording picturesque glimpses of water, hills, and forests far enough off for contemplation, and yet near enough to be accessible by a short ride from the mansion.
Pierre Philibert was startled at the strange familiarity of everything he saw: the passages and all their intricacies, where he, Le Gardeur, and Amélie had hid and found one another with cries of delight,—he knew where they all led to; the rooms with their antique and stately furniture, the paintings on the wall, before which he had stood and gazed, wondering if the world was as fair as those landscapes of sunny France and Italy and why the men and women of the house of Tilly, whose portraits hung upon the walls, looked at him so kindly with those dark eyes of theirs, which seemed to follow him everywhere, and he imagined they even smiled when their lips were illumined by a ray of sunshine. Pierre looked at them again with a strange interest,—they were like the faces of living friends who welcomed him back to Tilly after years of absence.
Pierre entered a well-remembered apartment which he knew to be the favorite sitting-room of the Lady de Tilly. He walked hastily across it to look at a picture upon the wall which he recognized again with a flush of pleasure.
It was the portrait of Amélie painted by himself during his last visit to Tilly. The young artist, full of enthusiasm, had put his whole soul into the work, until he was himself startled at the vivid likeness which almost unconsciously flowed from his pencil. He had caught the divine upward expression of her eyes, as she turned her head to listen to him, and left upon the canvas the very smile he had seen upon her lips. Those dark eyes of hers had haunted his memory forever after. To his imagination that picture had become almost a living thing. It was as a voice of his own that returned to his ear as the voice of Amélie. In the painting of that portrait Pierre had the first revelation of a consciousness of his deep love which became in the end the master passion of his life.
He stood for some minutes contemplating this portrait, so different from her in age now, yet so like in look and expression. He turned suddenly and saw Amélie; she had silently stepped up behind him, and her features in a glow of pleasure took on the very look of the picture.
Pierre started. He looked again, and saw every feature of the girl of twelve looking through the transparent countenance of the perfect woman of twenty. It was a moment of blissful revelation, for he felt an assurance at that moment that Amélie was the same to him now as in their days of youthful companionship. “How like it is to you yet, Amélie!” said he; “it is more true than I knew how to make it!”
“That sounds like a paradox, Pierre Philibert!” replied she, with a smile. “But it means, I suppose, that you painted a universal portrait of me which will be like through all my seven ages. Such a picture might be true of the soul, Pierre, had you painted that, but I have outgrown the picture of my person.”