"They are good and affectionate children," continued the father, when they had gone out. "The eldest is a gipsy who delights me with her gayety; the youngest often moves me even to tears. Her mother died in giving birth to her. The poor girl seems constantly under the influence of the misfortune which presided over her birth. "None of the things in which girls of her age delight, please or excite her. Her silent and retiring life, seems one long act of resignation. She finds interest in story and books alone. She has learned three or four languages, and read all the books either here or at the parsonage. When, however, she is in society, one would fancy her a very ignorant person, so little does she say and so anxious does she appear to conceal her information. Her modesty is disturbed by no vanity, and the placidity of her meditations is interrupted by no vulgar commotion. One might almost fancy her a stranger to this world, indifferent to its calculations, lost to its joys, and submitting without effort to its sorrows. I have never seen her smile, but I have never heard her complain. Delicate and weak, the paleness of her face, the languor of her appearance, betray a physical suffering she herself denies. "As soon as she perceives that I remark any indisposition in her, her countenance becomes illuminated by a gentle light, her lips are gilded with a sweet smile, as if she begged me to excuse the uneasiness she had inspired me with. "Forgive me, dear Ireneus, for this unscrupulous thrusting on you of my paternal egotism. I should first have inquired after you and your hopes which were crushed so soon. Ebba, however, is ever a cause of anxiety to me." Ireneus replied to this confidence by cordially clasping his hand. Just at that moment it was announced that the table was served. "Come," said the old man, "you will not find here the gastronomical niceties of Paris. Like plain country people, we live on the produce of the soil. A good bottle of old beer, however, has some merit, and varieties of game are found in our forests, for which the _gourmets_ of Paris would willingly exchange their hares and partridges." Ireneus sat between his two cousins, and his youthful appetite, sharpened by the journey he had made, delighted the old man. As he ate large slices of the haunch of a reindeer, and drank cup after cup of a savory beer, prepared with particular care by Alete, he contrived to look at the young girls on each side of him.