The Marquis embraced him with tears, and presented him to
me, when he fell on his knee, took my hand, pressed it to his lips
and bathed it with his tears, and then held Gaspard to his breast
with fervent love.
It was necessary to be cheerful before M. de Nidemerle. He had truly
loved his nephew, and mourned for him, but the aged do not like a
recurrence to sorrow, so the abbe amused him with the news brought
from Saumur, and our party at cards was a complete one that evening.
But the next day, the Abbe, who had loved his pupil like a son, could
talk of him to me, and it was a comfort I cannot express to my aching
heart to converse with him. Everything had settled into an ordinary
course. People fancied me consoled; I had attended to other things,
and I could not obtrude my grief on the Marquis or on Cecile; but on!
My sick yearning for my Philippe only grew the more because I might
not mention him or hear his name. However, the Abbe only longed to
listen to all I could tell him of the last three years, and in return
to tell me much that I should never otherwise have known of the
boyhood and youth of my dear one.
I felt as if the good man must never leave us, and I entreated M. de
Nidemerle to retain him at once as governor to little Gaspard. The
Marquis laughed at securing a tutor for a child not yet three years
old; but he allowed that the boy could not be in better hands, and,
moreover, he was used to the Abbe, and liked to take his arm and to
have him to make up the party at cards, which he played better than
the cure.
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