All this was said so cordially that I could not resist my friend’s invitation, and promised to visit him.

Three or four days later, Paris being empty and the recollection of my old companion haunting me, I felt a strong desire to take a peep at his conjugal felicity and to see with my own eyes this stream, this mill, this steeple, beside all which he was so happy.

I reached Les Roches at about six in the evening and was charmed at the very first glance.  Oscar’s residence was a little Louis Quinze chateau buried in the trees; irregularly built, but charmingly picturesque.  It had been left unaltered for a century at least, and everything, from the blackened mansard roofs with their rococo weather-cocks, to the bay windows with their tiny squares of glass and the fantastic escutcheon over the door, was in keeping.  Over the thick tiles of the somewhat sunken roof, the rough-barked old chestnuts lazily stretched their branches.  Creepers and climbing roses wantoned over the front, framing the windows, peeping into the garrets, and clinging to the waterspouts, laden with large bunches of flowers which swayed gently in the air.  Amid all these pointed roofs and this profusion of verdure and trees the blue sky could only be caught a glimpse of here and there.

The first person I saw was Oscar, clad in white from head to foot, and wearing a straw hat.  He was seated on an enormous block of stone which seemed part and parcel of the house, and appeared very much interested in a fine melon which his gardener had just brought to him.  No sooner had he caught sight of me than he darted forward and grasped me by the hand with such an expression of good-humor and affection that I said to myself, “Yes, certainly he was not deceiving me, he is happy.”  I found him just as I had known him in his youth, lively, rather wild, but kind and obliging.

“Pierre,” said he to the gardener, “take this gentleman’s portmanteau to the lower room,” and, as the gardener bestirred himself slowly and with an effort, Oscar seized the portmanteau and swung it, with a jerk, on to the shoulders of the poor fellow, whose legs bent under the weight.

“Lazybones,” said Oscar, laughing heartily.  “Ah! now I must introduce you to my little queen.  My wife, where is my wife?”

He ran to the bell and pulled it twice.  At once a fat cook with a red face and tucked-up sleeves, and behind her a man-servant wiping a plate, appeared at the ground-floor windows.  Had they been chosen on purpose?  I do not know, but their faces and bearing harmonized so thoroughly with the picture that I could not help smiling.

“Where is your mistress?” asked Oscar, and as they did not answer quickly enough he exclaimed, “Marie, Marie, here is my friend George.”