I followed her, much excited. She had put the candlestick in my hand and had run before me, so slight and lissome was she, that no sculptor could have conceived a purer ideal of nymph or goddess. I was already accustomed to seeing this ideal creature, costumed in the fashion of the day. Besides her toilette was of an exquisite taste and simplicity. I fancied I could even trace a symbolical resemblance in the color of her changeable silk dress, which was creamy white, with shadows of delicate green. “Here is M. Nivières,” said she, presenting me to her father, when she had joyfully embraced him. “Ah, ah!” he replied in a tone that seemed strange to me, and that would have troubled me, had he not at once come towards me, stretching out both hands with a cordiality no less surprising, “do not be astonished at my pleasure in seeing you, you are the friend of my son, consequently my own, and I know your value through him.” Madame d’Ionis and Bernard now ran forward; I found Caroline beautified by happiness. Some moments afterwards we all met again at the table, with the abbé Lamyre, who had arrived that morning, and the good Zéphyrine, who had closed the eyes of the dowager d’Ionis several weeks before, and who wore mourning like everyone else in the house. The d’Aillanes not being related to the d’Ionis, except by marriage, could dispense with a formality that would have seemed only an act of hypocrisy on their part. The supper was not lively. They were forced to abstain from gayety and expansiveness before the servants, and Madame d’Ionis realized so well the exigencies of her situation, that she restrained herself without effort and kept her guests up to the same pitch. The hardest person to silence was the abbé Lamyre; he could not resist his habit of humming two or three couplets, in the style of a philosophical _résumé_, during the conversation. Notwithstanding this sort of constraint, joy and love were in the air of this household, where no one could reasonably regret M. d’Ionis, and where the contracted ideas, and shallowness of the dowager’s heart had left a very small vacancy. We inhaled a perfume of hope and of delicate tenderness which penetrated my very soul, and which I wondered did not sadden me—I, who was betrothed to eternal solitude. It was true that since my intimacy with Bernard I had made rapid strides towards recovery. His character was so enterprising that, in spite of myself, he had snatched me from my mournful reflections; and in possessing himself of my secret he had also released me from the fatal influence which was drawing me to a separation from all other ties.