"Oh, if I were to reckon back to the day you left me, I should lose myself!" replied my aunt. "A year ago, at this season, I was on my estate in the Crimea, where I vegetated for five months; then I spent the winter at St. Petersburg, and the spring at my chateau in Corfu, where I had the advantage of a comfortable place in which to mourn over you. Finally I had been two months at Vienna, when I received from my steward eight days ago the letter in which you did me the honour of informing me both of your resurrection and of your desire to see me. I quickly made my farewell calls, started off, and here I am! Now," she added, holding out a plaid to him, "if you will kindly allow me to change these travelling clothes, you will make my happiness complete." "I am waiting to take you to your room," replied my uncle. "Nephew," she said to me with a curtsey, "prepare to minister to my caprices; I have plenty of them when I love.--In return let me say to you, Take it for granted." They left the room, and I felt quite astonished at the way they greeted each other. You can already understand the effect which my aunt must have produced on me, and I was no less surprised at the new traits which I discovered in my uncle's character. A complete revolution had been effected. He became all at once very natty in his dress. His rough straggling beard was trimmed in the Henri IVth style, and his moustaches were twirled up at the ends. He left off swearing; his language and his manners at once assumed the most correct tone, without constraint or embarrassment, and with a modulation so natural, that it seemed really to indicate a very long familiarity with fashionable practice. He had not made a single slip. His frank gallantry had nothing artificial about it; he was another man, and it was quite evident this was the only man that Eudoxie de Cornalis had ever known him to be. "Well! what do you think of your aunt?" he asked me as he came in after five minutes' absence. "She is charming, uncle, and as gracious as possible!" "Did you expect to find her a monkey, then?" he exclaimed. "Certainly not!" I replied. "But my aunt might have been beauty itself, and still have lacked the character and the intellectual qualities which I observe in her." "Oh, you can't at all judge of her yet!" continued he, in a careless tone. "You'll see what I mean later on. She's a real woman!" My aunt did not come down again until luncheon-time. Her appearance created quite an atmosphere of cheerful society in the dining-room, usually occupied only by my uncle and his nephew. My uncle was no doubt conscious of the same impression, for leaning towards me, he said to me in his inimitably cool manner, and in a low voice, "Don't you see how everything brightens up already?" My aunt sat down, and as she took off her gloves, cast her eyes over the table, the sideboards, the servants in waiting, and the general arrangements of the dining-room.