I was at supper when he arrived. He ordered another plate, and a bottle of wine; he was gay, excited, his eyes were brilliant, and he seemed quite to have forgotten my escapades in Paris, for he never referred to them. He had only come for an hour, to see how I was getting on, so he said; but he stayed three, for after supper he called Joubert, and they both went out into the night. These two old soldiers must have had something very important to say to one another, for they were gone an hour or more. When they returned, my father beckoned me to him and kissed me, and bade me good-night; then, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, he said to Joubert: "Patrick can come down to the road and see me off. Come, both of you, and bring a lantern." Joubert lit a lantern. The night was black as black velvet, and the lantern only showed Joubert's legging-clad legs as he marched before us down the gravel of the drive. The carriage was standing in the road. My father kissed me, got in, and drove away. Just as the vehicle moved off, he looked out of the window, and the light of the lantern which Joubert was holding up struck his face. What a reckless, daring, jolly face it was, that face I was destined never to see again! "What did father want to say to you, Joubert?" I asked as we returned to the pavilion. "What did he want to say?" cried Joubert, whose temper seemed sharper than usual. "Why, that the price of cabbages has gone up. What else would he have to say to me at this hour of the night? Mordieu! If I could be there!" "Where, Joubert?" But Joubert did not reply. Next morning the fine weather still held, and I was up at dawn. It was no trouble to get up early when one lived in the pavilion. The birds wakened one; and, then, the forest! In the very early morning, the forest, like the sea, is full of tender lights. Shadows and trees are equally unsubstantial, the rides are wreathed in vague mists, the last star has not quite faded from the sky, and the voice of the thrush comes from the glens as in the story of Vitigab, crying: "Deep--down deep--there somewhere in the darkness I see a ray of light." The hollow tapping of the woodpecker comes from the beech glades, whilst the rabbits shake the dew from their fur, and the rustle of the stoat comes from the ferns; a nut falls, and, looking up, you see against the sky, where the treetops are waving in the palest sapphire air, the squirrel, the sweetest of all wood things. You observe one another and he is gone, and the wind draws up from leagues away like the rustling of a silken skirt, till, suddenly, the whole forest draws breath. You can hear it waking from its slumber just as at dusk you can hear it falling to sleep; for the forest is a living thing, a thing that breathes and speaks and has its dreams.