At the first glance, Valerie de Ste. Valerie seemed hardly more than a child, for she was slight and small; my first thought was, how like she was to her brother, with the same fair hair and dark, bright blue eyes. She was dressed in a gown of white dimity, very fine, with ruffles at the foot of the skirt, and a fichu of the same crossed on her breast. I must say to you, my dear Melody, that it was from this first sight of her that I took the habit of observing a woman's dress always. A woman of any age taking pains to adorn herself, it has always seemed to me boorish not to take careful note of the particulars of a toilet. Mlle. de Ste. Valerie wore slippers of blue kid, her feet being remarkably slender and well-shaped; and a blue ribbon about her hair, in the manner of a double fillet. After a few gracious words, she went forward into a room at one side of the hall, we following, and here I was presented to her aunt, a lady who had lived with the brother and sister since their parents' death, a few years before this time. Of this lady, who was never my friend, I will say little. Her first aspect reminded me of frozen vinegar, carved into human shape; yet she had fine manners, and excused herself with dignity for not rising to salute us, being lame, as her nephew knew. For Yvon, though he kissed her hand (a thing I had never seen before), I thought there was little love in the greeting; nor did he seem oppressed with grief when she excused herself also from coming to sup with us. At supper, we three together at a table that was like a small island of warm pleasantness in the great hollow dining-hall, Yvon was full of wild talk, we two others mostly listening. He had everything to tell, about the voyage, about his new friends, all of whom were noble and beautiful and clever. "Figure to yourself, Valerie!" he cried. "I found our family there; the most noble, the most gigantic persons in the world! Thy cousin Jambon, it is a giant, eight feet high, at the least. He denies it, he is the soul of modesty, but I have eyes, and I see. This man has the soul greater than his vast body; we have discussed life, death, in short, the Infinite, we three, Jambon and Jacques and I. He has a father--both have fathers! it is the course of nature. The father of D'Arthenay here is a prince, a diamond of the old rock; ah! if our father of sainted memory could have known M. D'Arthenay _pere_, Valerie, he would have known the brother of his soul, as their sons know each other. Not so, Jacques? But _le pere_ Bellefort, Valerie, he is gigantesque, like his son. These rocks, these towers, they have the hearts of children, the smiles of a crowing infant. You laugh, D'Arthenay? I say something incorrect? how then?" He had said nothing incorrect, I told him; I only thought it would be surprising to hear Father Belfort crow, as he hardly spoke three times in the day.