"I owe to this country some of the pleasantest hours of my life. I owe to it a calmness which I cannot any longer find in France. I am indebted to it for good and healthful emotions. I owe to it, exile as I am, a tender asylum, a family; and I shall feel your wedding-day one of the happiest of my life." On the very next day all the house of M. de Vermondans was occupied with preparations for the approaching marriage. Dressmakers were busy, and cabinet-makers were preparing furniture, platforms, &c., for the wedding-day. Alete had enough to do to watch over the different works. Smiling and merry as she used to be, a change had come over her, and she seemed already dignified and matronly. Ebba assisted her with great devotion, and ceased to give Ireneus lessons in Swedish. M. de Vermondans smoked his pipe with an air of thought, and sometimes of sorrow, for the idea of separation from his daughter weighed heavily on him, much as he desired that she should marry so near him. For the first time since he had reached his uncle's house, Ireneus was alone. A few days before the merry chat of Alete, the philosophical conversation of the old gentleman, the dreamy poetry of Ebba, and the activity and motion of all the household had diverted the young officer's attention from himself. Now his thoughts involuntarily returned, in consequence of news he had received from his country. His mother, who shared all his secrets, sought to encourage him, and to unfold a new horizon. In spite of this, however, every letter increased his unhappiness. Some of his friends also wrote to him; and this correspondence surprised him painfully. He heard, in this manner, of political defections which he, in his chivalric exaggeration looked on as felony, and at which he was most indignant. "Villains!" said he, one day, as he read to his uncle a letter which he had just received. "Now, this man owed everything to the kindness of Charles X., yet for the sake of office he has cast himself at the foot of a new master. Here is one who, on the 28th of July, applauded the ordinances, and swore that the hydra of liberalism should he destroyed: and said that he would pour out the last drop of his blood in defense of legitimacy. He is now a partisan of the revolution. We live in a scandalous age. All principles of honor and religion are forgotten. Office has great value, indeed, when honor and conscience are sacrificed to it." As he spoke thus, Ireneus strode up and down the room, and crushed the letter in his hands.