It was evening when I reached Rennes, but there still wanted an hour or two of night; and as my horse was extremely tired, I left him at the auberge, and walked on by the bank of the stream towards the Prés Vallée. The calm sweet meadows, the magnificent woods that surrounded them, the still silvery river that wandered through the midst, all seemed more tranquilly solemn than usual. A feeling of soft repose pervaded the whole scene, while the beams of the setting sun, pouring between the bolls of the giant trees, and streaming amidst the green transparent leaves of the young spring, cheered away every trace of gloom, and left it all still and peaceful, though anything but gay. Although I was going to those I loved, and delighted in the thought of seeing them again, yet the many feelings of my heart, the memories of the past, the hopes of the future, the enjoyment of the present, all, perhaps, tended to make me linger as I wandered on through a scene that seemed to blend and harmonise with every mingled emotion of my bosom. I had passed the second and third sweep of trees, had crossed the fourth savanna, and had entered the fourth grove, when I heard some one speaking, and, looking forward, I saw two female figures, under one of the trees which bordered the meadow I was just about to cross. They were evidently enjoying the evening sunshine, the one standing with her arm leaning against the old elm that overhung their heads, the other seated on a bench which had been placed at its foot. I had no difficulty in recognising in the first my old acquaintance, Lise, the suivante of Mademoiselle de Villardin, but I could scarcely believe that the other was her young mistress. It seemed but a day since I had left her a mere child; at least, so gradual had been the change up to the time of my last departure, that to me she had seemed but little older than when first I knew her. Now, however, there was a change indeed. Even before I saw her face, the full rounded contour of her whole form, the very fall of her figure, still replete with grace and beauty--but, oh, so different from the grace of childhood--prepared me for an alteration, or rather made me doubt that it could be herself; but when my step caught her ear, and she turned towards me, I paused in surprise. It was certainly the face of Laura de Villardin--every feature was there, but yet so splendidly changed. The full ruby lip, the dark bright eye, the long black lashes, the sunny cheek, were all before me, as I had known them for years: but there was a new soul in them all--a light, a feeling, that left them as different as it is possible to conceive; and yet the general expression, too, was the same--innocent, natural, playful. The features, however, had also become more formed: they had lost every remains of what one may call the shapelessness of childhood, and had acquired all the chiselled symmetry of young maturity.