"If you are so surprised, gentlemen, at my looks at sixty-three, what would you have thought had you seen my father at eighty-seven." "Your father, general! he cannot be alive yet, sure." "Alive! yes, thank God, and alive like to be, I hope, for many a good year to come yet. Now, gentlemen, let me tell you a little story of my father. The very Christmas before I sailed for America, I went to see him. It was three hundred miles, at least, from Paris. On arriving at the house I found my dear old mother at her wheel, in her eighty-third year, mind gentlemen!! spinning very gaily, while one of her great-granddaughters carded the wool and sung a hymn for her. Soon as the first transport of meeting was over, I eagerly asked for my father. `Do not be uneasy, my son,' said she, `your father is only gone to the woods with his three little great-grandchildren, to cut some fuel for the fire, and they will all be here presently, I'll be bound!' And so it proved; for in a very short time I heard them coming along. My father was the foremost, with his axe under his arm, and a stout billet on his shoulder; and the children, each with his little load, staggering along, and prattling to my father with all their might. Be assured, gentlemen, that this was a most delicious moment to me. Thus after a long absence, to meet a beloved father, not only alive, but in health and dear domestic happiness above the lot of kings: also to see the two extremes of human life, youth and age, thus sweetly meeting and mingling in that cordial love, which turns the cottage into a paradise." In telling this little story of his aged father and his young relatives, the general's fine countenance caught an animation which perfectly charmed us all. The eyes of Marion sparkled with pleasure. "General," said he, "the picture which you have given us of your father, and his little great-grandchildren, though short, is extremely interesting and delightful. It confirms me in an opinion which I have long entertained, which is, that there is more happiness in low life than in high life; in a cottage than in a castle. Pray give us, general, your opinion of that matter." "Why," replied De Kalb, "this opinion of yours, colonel, is not a novel one by any means. It was the opinion of Rousseau, Fenelon, and of many other great men, and elegant writers. But notwithstanding such high authority, I must still beg leave to be a dissenter. I have seen so many people happy and also unhappy, both in cottages and castles, that I cannot but conclude, that happiness does not belong, peculiarly, to either condition, but depends on something very different from, and infinitely superior to both." We eagerly asked what he alluded to.