I kissed my aunt: but, as I kissed her, I was rather surprised to find her very much altered. She had become fair and pink-complexioned. A certain firm and youthful plumpness, which suited her remarkably well, gave her the appearance of a girl of eighteen. Being more bashful than at our former interview, she tendered me her fresh cheeks with a blush. I noticed also that her accent had undergone a modification, and now very much resembled the accent of one of my school-fellows who was Dutch. As I expressed my surprise at these changes, my uncle informed me that they had just returned from Java. This explanation sufficed for me, I did not ask any more questions, and henceforth I accustomed myself every year to the various metamorphoses of my aunt. The metamorphosis which pleased me the least was that which she contracted after a voyage to Bourbon, from which she returned a mulattress, but without ceasing still to be remarkably handsome. My uncle, it should be mentioned, was always very good to her, and I have never known a happier household. Unfortunately Barbassou-Pasha, being engaged in important affairs, stayed away three years, and when I returned to Ferouzat, he kissed me and received me by himself. When I asked after my aunt, he told me that he was a widower. As this misfortune did not appear to affect him very seriously, I made up my mind to treat it with the same indifference that he did. Since that time I never saw any woman at the chateau, except once in an isolated part of the park, where I met two shadowy beings, closely and mysteriously veiled. They were taking a walk, accompanied by an old fellow of singular aspect, clothed in a long robe with a _tarbouch_ on his head, who greatly excited my curiosity. My uncle told me that this was His Excellency, Mohammed-Azis, one of his friends at Constantinople, whom he had taken in with his family after they had undergone persecution at the hands of the Sultan. He lodged him in another little chateau adjoining Ferouzat, in order that they might be able to live more comfortably in Turkish style: those young persons were two of his daughters. After that year, I never again stayed in Provence: for my uncle, having settled in China and Japan, was absent five years, and my only relations with him were through his banker at Paris, with whom I enjoyed that solid and unlimited credit which you envied so much, and of which I availed myself with such easy grace and in such a superbly reckless spirit. You remember that I received a few months ago a letter announcing this sudden misfortune, and requesting my immediate presence at Ferouzat, to remove the seals and open the will: my poor uncle had died in Abyssinia.