The geniality of the weather, reviving all nature around him, with her swarming myriads of birds and bees hovering over the new-born flowers, starting anew to life from beneath their winter mantle of snow, awoke in his bosom correspondent transports of love and joy. It were vain to dilate on the expansion of human feeling which gradually enlarged his perceptions. The good old chief had begun to entertain an affection for him; and, though unlearned in pedantic lore, had stored up, in the course of his long existence, an infinity of facts and observations, which, joined to those inherited from the lessons of his fathers, inspired him with knowledge of the Creator through the wisdom of his works. In a word, the presumptuous youth, who had entered that humble asylum for the purpose of converting its people to his opinions, eventually quitted it, _himself_ converted to their own!—nay, the industrious habits he had acquired, and the examples of domestic happiness he had witnessed, had brought him to a due sense of his error in neglecting the happiness and duties with which Providence had endowed his existence. [Illustration] Giacomo’s first visit after quitting Monte Rosa, was to the convent in which his wife was immured. A whole romance might be developed in the history of his wooing, and the difficulties with which his courtship was beset. Suffice it, that after many months devoted to the obliteration of the lessons he had himself inculcated, Girardi, aided by the influence of his parents, succeeded in removing his wife from the cloistral seclusion to which he had devoted her; and became, in the sequel, the happiest of husbands and of fathers. The errors of his youth were now redeemed by years of wisdom and of virtue. Established in his native city of Turin, in the enjoyment of a handsome fortune, the thriving speculations in which he was engaged might have rendered it colossal, but for the systematic benevolence which rendered the opulence of Girardi a second providence to the poor. To do good was the _occupation_ of his life; his favourite recreation was the study of animated nature. Girardi became a proficient in natural history; and as GOD is greatest in the least of his works, entomology chiefly engaged his attention. It was this interest in the organization and habits of insects, which had obtained for him from Ludovico, in the earlier stages of his imprisonment, the appellation of “The Fly-catcher.” [Illustration] CHAPTER V. The two prisoners had no longer any secrets from each other. After glancing rapidly over the history of their several lives, they returned to the various incidents of each, and the emotions to which they had given rise. They sometimes spoke of Teresa; but at the very mention of her name, a vivid blush overspread the face of Charney, and the old man himself grew grave and sad. Any allusion to the absent angel was sure to be followed by an interval of mournful silence.