I saw evidently that he caught at the promise I had made, and, to tell the truth, I was sorry that I had made it. Not that I did not consider myself bound by the station I held in his family to do exactly as I had said; but I was a little afraid that my good lord might construe my words rather more liberally than I had intended them to be understood. As they were spoken, however, there was no help for it; and though I repeated over again,--to make the engagement as clear and definite as possible,--that I would never see him wronged without endeavouring to right him, or without giving him an opportunity of doing so himself, still I was afraid he might be inclined to exact, under that promise, more than I should be inclined to concede. I found indeed, afterwards, that he himself very well understood, that there was another way of making it a point of honour with me to do as he desired, which was by loading me with benefits, and bestowing on me that confidence which would have rendered it an act of the greatest ingratitude on my part to conceal from him any attempt to injure him. Satisfied with the promise I had made, and determined with regard to the course he would pursue towards me, he dropped that part of the conversation there; but made me give him a long history of my family and my adventures; told me that he had been well acquainted with Lord Wilmerton, my mother's father, some fifteen years before; and ended by giving me an assurance, which he nobly accomplished, that thenceforth he would treat me more as his son than as his attendant. He then took up the light and quitted the chamber, leaving me to meditate over the future, which, notwithstanding the promises he had made, and which I fully believed he would keep, still presented some clouds and shadows that I certainly could have wished away. After this conversation, I was almost continually with Monsieur de Villardin, especially as, in all those exercises in which noblemen of that day held themselves bound to have their pages well instructed, I was already as skilful as necessary, and, consequently, had scarcely any other occupation than that of attending upon the Duke. In the pages' room matters soon assumed the state into which I could have wished them to fall. Master Gaspard de Belleville, the eldest of my three companions, submitted to necessity with a somewhat bad grace; and the two younger, as soon as they had become reconciled to me as their new comrade, and accustomed to my manners and accent, sought shelter under my protection from the tyranny of their former despot. The old major-domo ere long acquired a great affection for me; and as I was quite willing, from the novelty of the thing, to be petted as much as any one pleased, he made quite a favourite of me, providing me with all those little comforts and luxuries which the chief domestic of a great house has always at his disposal.