CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS AND CONFIDENT TO-MORROWS.
The ladies retired to their several rooms, and after a general rearranging of toilets descended to the great parlor, where they were joined by Messire La Lande, the cure of the parish, a benevolent, rosy old priest, and several ladies from the neighborhood, with two or three old gentlemen of a military air and manner, retired officers of the army who enjoyed their pensions and kept up their respectability at a cheaper rate in the country than they could do in the city.
Felix Beaudoin had for the last two hours kept the cooks in hot water. He was now superintending the laying of the table, resolved that, notwithstanding his long absence from home, the dinner should be a marvellous success.
Amelie was very beautiful to-day. Her face was aglow with pure air and exercise, and she felt happy in the apparent contentment of her brother, whom she met with Pierre on the broad terrace of the Manor House.
She was dressed with exquisite neatness, yet plainly. An antique cross of gold formed her only adornment except her own charms. That cross she had put on in honor of Pierre Philibert. He recognized it with delight as a birthday gift to Amelie which he had himself given her during their days of juvenile companionship, on one of his holiday visits to Tilly.
She was conscious of his recognition of it,--it brought a flush to her cheek. "It is in honor of your visit, Pierre," said she, frankly, "that I wear your gift. Old friendship lasts well with me, does it not? But you will find more old friends than me at Tilly who have not forgotten you."
"I am already richer than Croesus, if friendship count as riches, Amelie. The hare had many friends, but none at last; I am more fortunate in possessing one friend worth a million."
"Nay, you have the million too, if good wishes count in your favor, Pierre, you are richer"--the bell in the turret of the chateau began to ring for dinner, drowning her voice somewhat.
"Thanks to the old bell for cutting short the compliment, Pierre," continued she, laughing; "you don't know what you have lost! but in compensation you shall be my cavalier, and escort me to the dining- room."
She took the arm of Pierre, and in a merry mood, which brought back sweet memories of the past, their voices echoed again along the old corridors of the Manor House as they proceeded to the great dining- room, where the rest of the company were assembling.
The dinner was rather a stately affair, owing to the determination of Felix Beaudoin to do especial honor to the return home of the family. How the company ate, talked, and drank at the hospitable table need not be recorded here. The good Cure's face, under the joint influence of good humor and good cheer, was full as a harvest moon. He rose at last, folded his hands, and slowly repeated "agimus gratias." After dinner the company withdrew to the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, where conversation, music, and a few games of cards for such as liked them, filled up a couple of hours longer.
The Lady de Tilly, seated beside Pierre Philibert on the sofa, conversed with him in a pleasant strain, while the Cure, with a couple of old dowagers in turbans, and an old veteran officer of the colonial marine, long stranded on a lee shore, formed a quartette at cards.
These were steady enthusiasts of whist and piquet, such as are only to be found in small country circles where society is scarce and amusements few. They had met as partners or antagonists, and played, laughed, and wrangled over sixpenny stakes and odd tricks and honors, every week for a quarter of a century, and would willingly have gone on playing till the day of judgment without a change of partners if they could have trumped death and won the odd trick of him.
Pierre recollected having seen these same old friends seated at the same card-table during his earliest visits to the Manor House. He recalled the fact to the Lady de Tilly, who laughed and said her old friends had lived so long in the company of the kings and queens that formed the paste-board Court of the Kingdom of Cocagne that they could relish no meaner amusement than one which royalty, although mad, had the credit of introducing.
Amelie devoted herself to the task of cheering her somewhat moody brother. She sat beside him, resting her hand with sisterly affection upon his shoulder, while in a low, sweet voice she talked to him, adroitly touching those topics only which she knew awoke pleasurable associations in his mind. Her words were sweet as manna and full of womanly tenderness and sympathy, skilfully wrapped in a strain of gaiety like a bridal veil which covers the tears of the heart.
Pierre Philibert's eyes involuntarily turned towards her, and his ears caught much of what she said. He was astonished at the grace and perfection of her language; it seemed to him like a strain of music filled with every melody of earth and heaven, surpassing poets in beauty of diction, philosophers in truth,--and in purity of affection, all the saints and sweetest women of whom he had ever read.
Her beauty, her vivacity, her modest reticences, and her delicate tact in addressing the captious spirit of Le Gardeur, filled Pierre with admiration. He could at that moment have knelt at her feet and worshipped in her the realization of every image which his imagination had ever formed of a perfect woman.
Now and then she played on the harp for Le Gardeur the airs which she knew he liked best. His sombre mood yielded to her fond exertions, and she had the reward of drawing at last a smile from his eyes as well as from his lips. The last she knew might be simulated, the former she felt was real, for the smile of the eye is the flash of the joy kindled in the glad heart.