Our friends were to come to breakfast, and they appeared punctually at the hour. O, how warmly did I welcome them, and how happy did Mariette’s presence make me there. The very memory of that day is so sweet that I could dwell—even now—upon all the details with childish fondness. Fancy one of your own dreams of early delight, and spread it through a bright, glorious summer-day, and you will comprehend the passing of the next twelve hours to me. But I must pass over much of what we did. Monsieur de Salins was suffering a good deal—as I found was still frequently the case—from the effect of his old wounds; but he sat out in the garden with Father Bonneville, while I, and Madame de Salins and Mariette, wandered about amongst the shrubs and flowers. Dinner had been ordered early, that we might not lose the cool of the evening for any ramble we might choose to take, and I suggested two or three little expeditions, all of which were determined upon in turn, but ultimately abandoned. To my surprise, however, I found, at length, that Mariette—though residing so long in the neighborhood—had never visited a spot celebrated in history, and exquisitely beautiful in itself, but which has long since lost one of its best charms from the multitudes which throng thither on a summer’s day. I speak of Greenwich park. Madame de Salins said that she had often thought of going thither with her daughter, but it was too far from their house for them to walk, and they could not afford a carriage. I pressed them both to go that evening; they were a mile nearer: we had but to cross the heath—and then I proposed to send for the pony-phaeton, and drive them over. That Madame de Salins would not hear of, and she feared the fatigue of a walk. Mariette looked a little disappointed, perhaps; and her father—who watched every look of his child’s face with earnest affection—exclaimed: “You two go, my children. Never mind us, we will enjoy ourselves here—there can be no objection, I suppose?” he added, turning to his wife. “Oh! none,” replied Madame de Salins, at once. “She is as safe with Louis as with a brother.” It is but fair that fortune—who so often amuses herself with putting out of joint our best devised schemes—should, at rare intervals, make us compensation thus, by bringing about, through little accidents, that which we desire, but dare not hope for.