The old pastor, though he certainly did not look upon me still as a boy, could scarcely understand how the men that he saw around me came to pay such instant deference to my orders; how one waited for my casque, another took off my cuirass, another came to me for one direction, and another on something else; and Dame Marguelette, for her part, would, I believe, willingly have patted my head when the helmet was taken off, and she saw again the brown curls that she used to twine round her fingers in my infancy. Louise alone seemed fully to look upon me as a man and a commander; but we must remember that on my arm had she leaned from her own childhood; that I had not only been her companion, but her counsellor and her protector; and that, side by side with my greater strength and powers, she had grown up like a violet under some taller shrub, shaded but sheltered. I found good old La Tour thoughtful, very thoughtful; and at the meal which ensued, I remarked that he frequently laid down his knife and spoon, and fell into a deep revery. Louise, on the contrary, was bright and happy, full of joy and satisfaction at being once more amid those whom she loved best; and though, ever since the preceding night, a slight shade of timidity--timidity shall I call it? no, it was not timidity, nor exactly tenderness perhaps, but a depth, a profundity, a feelingness of tone--mingled with all she said to me. Though the colour in her cheek became somewhat brighter, and her eye acquired a calm intensity of look when she spoke to me long upon any interesting subject, yet it was evident that the change in her feelings towards me was, if I may use the term, less complete, even though greater, than with the two others; she beheld me with sensations which were only the expansion of what had gone before; they saw me under a point of view altogether altered; I saw the change in her, perhaps, in one little trait more than in anything else. With natural, vanity I happened, during the meal, to mention that the Prince de Condé--at that time the great hero of the Protestant party--had just conferred upon me the order of knighthood with his own hand. Louise started up with her eyes and her cheeks all glowing, and with a look of joy and delight that can never pass from my mind. The tears of deep satisfaction were almost overflowing her eyes, and the words of congratulation were almost overpowering to her; but she sat down again immediately, and only held out her hand to me. The time had been when she would have cast her arms around my neck, and kissed me while she wished me joy.