"I am glad to see you are an early riser, my son," he said, after wishing me good morning. "It is a practice which leads to many worldly advantages; and, where the mind is well disposed, may be turned to better purposes. There is a freshness, and a sublimity, and a calm, monitory voice, in the early morning, which inspires purity of feeling, counsels good purposes for the ensuing day, and lifts the heart to adoration of the Being who made all the bright world that is wakening around us." Whether he did it with that purpose or not, I cannot tell, but certainly he could not have chosen a better method of breaking down all the barriers between us, which my examination of his character on the preceding night had raised up, than by thus showing me that there were finer thoughts and feelings in his heart than those which I had as yet discovered. After a few more words, however, in the same strain, he again brought the conversation to Monsieur de Villardin; and he now spoke of him in terms of tenderness and pity which he had restrained on the preceding night, while in the presence of the old domestic. Nor was it alone his sorrows he appeared to commiserate: he seemed to pity him more for his errors than even for his griefs. He spoke of him as of a being who, with noble powers and a generous heart, had, by a few weaknesses and faults, created for himself lasting misery below, and endangered his happiness for the long hereafter. There was something so eloquent--I may say, so sublime, in the pouring forth of his lamentation over one who was evidently his friend as well as his penitent, that I was struck and affected; while all my prepossessions, I felt, were rapidly giving way to a truer estimate of my companion's character. Seeing that I listened eagerly, and, mistaking the cause of the surprise which was visible upon my countenance, he added, "You wonder to find me addressing you thus upon the subject of the Duke; but you must remember that I am his confessor, and know exactly how much you know of his affairs; what share you have had therein, and how you have borne yourself under difficult circumstances."