“As soon as she perceives that I remark any indisposition in her, her countenance becomes illuminated by a gentle light, her lips are gilded with a sweet smile, as if she begged me to excuse the uneasiness she had inspired me with.

“Forgive me, dear Ireneus, for this unscrupulous thrusting on you of my paternal egotism.  I should first have inquired after you and your hopes which were crushed so soon.  Ebba, however, is ever a cause of anxiety to me.”

Ireneus replied to this confidence by cordially clasping his hand.  Just at that moment it was announced that the table was served.

“Come,” said the old man, “you will not find here the gastronomical niceties of Paris.  Like plain country people, we live on the produce of the soil.  A good bottle of old beer, however, has some merit, and varieties of game are found in our forests, for which the gourmets of Paris would willingly exchange their hares and partridges.”

Ireneus sat between his two cousins, and his youthful appetite, sharpened by the journey he had made, delighted the old man.  As he ate large slices of the haunch of a reindeer, and drank cup after cup of a savory beer, prepared with particular care by Alete, he contrived to look at the young girls on each side of him.

The eldest, always in motion, waited on her cousin and her father, went to the kitchen, sat again at the table, and when she laughed disclosed two rows of pearl between her rose-colored lips.  She was indeed a charming girl, round and dimpled as a child, fresh and gay as a bird, with every gesture graceful, though she was a little espiegle and coquettish.  Her coquetry, however, was naive and chaste, of a kind which in many women is but the amiable manifestation of a sentiment of benevolence, and an innocent desire to be agreeable.

Ireneus took pleasure in looking at her, and as she immediately acquired self-possession, she conferred the same privilege on others.  She already jested with him as if he had been an old friend, and he felt himself as unconstrained as if he had passed his whole life with her.  When, however, he looked at Ebba, it was with strange emotion.  Nothing in his whole life had ever touched him so.  The countenance of the young girl had a cold marble whiteness, making it assume the appearance of a statue, wrought in the most artistic manner.

Two long tresses of yellow hair fell over her cheeks, and disclosed a brow of ideal serenity.  Her pale face was lit up with eyes clear as crystal, and blue and deep as lakes reflecting the skies.  Any one who had once looked into her eyes could not forget them.  Often they drooped beneath the lids, like a heart overcome with grief sheltering itself beneath a cloud.  When they were lifted up no earthly desire animated them, and in their vague radiation they seemed to look into the infinite.