"Your description of the old garden, with its rippling fountains and
quaint _parterres_, reminds me of the days of my youth, when my mother
gave her receptions there. Yes, my dear pupil, the halls of that old
house and the old-fashioned garden have been the scene of many
gay gatherings in the olden time, when France had a true aristocracy.
And not only stately dames and courtiers thronged to the Hôtel
Bois-le-Duc, but the foremost minds of the day lent brilliancy to my
mother's _salons_. Wits, authors, poets, artists, statesmen, whose
words could change the fate of Europe, were proud to call the marquise
friend. I am an old man now, and you must forgive an old man's
prosiness; but a little sadness comes into my thoughts when I muse on
the past. How many of those illustrious souls, then so full of life
and power, remain? And I, long exiled from all I cherished, how have I
progressed? No, no, Eugène; not even to you would I complain. What has
a faithful follower of the Cross to do with the vanities of this
world?

"It is one of my temptations, still, to think on what might have been
had I not chosen the hard road, had I not renounced the gay world and
its fascinations, for it had, and _has_ fascinations yet for me.
Eugène, my reward will be hereafter; but, as an old man, and one who
has endeavored to do his duty for many years, I often wonder whether I
mistook my vocation. But away with such doubts, they are a snare of
the arch-enemy himself, a subtle snare.

"My dear pupil, hard as it was to let you go, I am glad you left me. I
knew those years of labor _must_ tell in the end. I knew so much zeal
could not be thrown away.