I explained to him the whole particulars; which, as he well knew the grasping spirit of Mazarin, did not at all surprise him: nor did the arrangement, I believe, displease him at heart; for, after a comment or two on the injustice of the proceeding, and a promise to use his influence in order to obtain for me something equivalent to that which I had lost, he added,--"But I will take care that it shall be nothing that will separate us again; for your absence has been a loss to me which I scarcely thought anything could now prove, at least in such a degree. That I should feel it deeply, however, is not at all astonishing; for I think, De Juvigny, it is now between nine and ten years since first we met; and, during that time, we have never before been separated for many months, except when you were in prison at Stenay. I think, too, that during that time, you have accumulated upon my head more obligations than ever one man before conferred upon another. You have been my confidant, my adviser, my friend, and my constant companion; so that I may well feel your absence as a loss which the society of even my dear child can scarcely compensate." "There now, my dear brother," cried Laura, using an epithet which she often employed towards me; "have I not a right to be jealous of you? and, indeed," she added, "I should almost be jealous of your little page, too, who has completely supplanted both my father's other pages in his affection, were I not as fond of the dear boy myself." Almost as she spoke, Clement himself entered the library, bounding up to my knee with that sort of bold and undismayed step, which showed me clearly upon what very unceremonious terms he had established himself in the family of Monsieur de Villardin. He was greatly changed in his appearance since I had last seen him, though he was still as fine a boy as ever I beheld; and as tall, as strong, and as well proportioned as many boys of eleven or twelve, although he could not be, at that time, so much as nine years old. There was, too, in his whole appearance, an air of graceful ease--a sort of natural dignity--which was extraordinary in one so young; and I felt very sure, from his whole demeanour, that he had been informed by some one, that his rank and station in society was equal to that of those with whom he was called to mix. The time he had spent at the Prés Vallée had certainly not been thrown away; for I soon found that my little page was already a more accomplished scholar than myself; and I easily perceived, from the manner in which he executed all that he had learned of military exercises, that he wanted but habit, discipline, and experience to become eventually one of the best soldiers of the day.