other’s company, they ought never to talk about parting.
My intimation that I should set out early next morning was rejected as wholly inadmissible.
We now went into the house to supper. I no longer felt myself a stranger, but like one of the family, and as if I had lived here from my infancy. Mimili had prepared a supper fit for a lord: the Côte wine, with which the father plied me with friendly hospitality, and the strong Vaux, which he brought after the cloth was removed, infused such a heat into my veins, that I seemed to be all on fire.
“Now,” said the old man to Mimili, as we rose from table, “you two shall take a walk to the little cascade: the dark basin into which the stream precipitates itself in foam has a singular appearance at night. I am tired, and shall go to bed; but don’t stay long, children, for it is already late.”
I observed, half in jest and half in earnest, that it was rather venturous to trust the girl with me alone.
He smiled. “That man, sir,” said he, with emphasis, “whose breast his king has adorned with this cross, a virtuous father may certainly trust with his virtuous daughter either by day or by night.”
The old man might indeed well talk thus coolly: he was past sixty, and he had only sip-
