When we arrived at the market-place, the Chevalier, who was about to visit the house of Arnault, his procureur, left me, and I proceeded alone, riding rapidly on, till the path, winding through the narrow gorge beyond Lourdes, opened out into the wide basin of Argelés. I paused for a moment to look over its far extent, rich in sunny magnificence. All seemed brightness, and tranquillity, and summer; every asperity was smoothed and harmonized, and the lustrous purple of the distant air spread a misty softness over each rough feature of the mountains; while a thousand blue and indistinct passes wound away on every side, promising to lead to calm and splendid lands beyond. It was like the prospect of life to a young and ardent imagination, before years have clouded the scene, or experience has exposed its ruggedness. There, was the dazzling misty sunshine with which fancy invests every distant object--there, the sweet valleys of repose where we promise ourselves peace and enjoyment--there, the mighty steps whereby ambition would mount unto the sky; while the dim passes, that branched away on either hand, imaged not ill the thousand vague and dreamy schemes of youth for reaching fancied delights which shall never be attained. There were, however, real and substantial joys before me, which I hurried on to taste, and in the expectation of which was mingled no probable alloy, although I had been so long absent from my native home. The meeting of long-separated friends is rarely indeed without its pain. To mark the ravages that Time's deliberate, remorseless hand has worked upon those we love--to see a grace fled--or a happiness--any, any change in what is dear, is something to regret. But I was not at a time of life to anticipate sorrow; and my parents had seen me at Pau some four months before, so that but little alteration could have taken place. Nothing, therefore, waited me but delight. My horse flew rather than ran, and the dwelling of my sires was soon within sight. I sprang to the ground in the courtyard, and, without a moment's pause, ran up the stairs to my mother's apartments, not hearing or attending to the old _maître d'hôtel_, who reiterated that she was in the garden. There was delight in treading each old-accustomed step of my infancy, of gazing round upon objects, every line of which was a memory. The gloom of the old vestibule, the channeled marble of the grand staircase, the immense oaken door of my mother's apartments, all called up remembrances of the sweet past; and I hurried on, gathering recollections, till I entered the embroidery-room, where I had sprung a thousand times to her arms in my early boyhood.