The day after my arrival, Julie had introduced me to the old man, who
was to her a father, and whose latter days she brightened with the
radiance of her mind, her tenderness, and her beauty. He received me as
a son. He had learned from her our meeting in Savoy, our fraternal
attachment, our daily correspondence, and the affinity of our minds, as
shown by the conformity of our tastes, ages, and feelings. He knew the
entire purity of our attachment, and felt no jealousy, or any anxiety,
save for the life, the happiness, and reputation of his ward. He only
feared she might have been attracted and deceived by that first look,
which is sometimes a revelation, and sometimes a delusion of the young,
and that she might have bestowed her heart on a man of the creation of
her fancy. My letters, from which she had read him several passages,
had somewhat reassured him, but it was only from my countenance he
could learn whether they were an artful or natural expression of my
feelings; for style may deceive, but the countenance never can.
The old man surveyed me with that anxious attention which is often
concealed under an appearance of momentary abstraction. But as he saw
me more, and questioned me, I could see his searching look clear up,
betray an inward satisfaction, soften gradually into one of confidence
and good-will, and rest upon me with that security and caress of the
eye, which though a mute is perhaps the best reception at a first
interview. My ardent desire to please him; the timidity so natural to a
young man, who feels that the fate of his heart depends on the judgment
passed upon him; the fear that it might not be favorable; the presence
of Julie, which disconcerted though it encouraged me; and all the
shades of thought so plainly legible in my modest attitude and my
flushed cheeks,--spoke in my favor better than I could have done
myself. The old man took my hand with a paternal gesture, and said,
"Compose yourself; and consider that you have two friends in this
house, instead of one. Julie could not have better chosen a brother,
and I would not choose another son." He embraced me, and we talked
together as if he had known me from my childhood, until an old servant
came at ten o'clock, according to his invariable custom, to give him
the help of his arm on the stair, and lead him back to his own
apartment.