The Abbe also was most welcome to my mother.
How we all looked at one another, to find the old beings we had
loved, and to learn the new ones we had become! My mother was of
course the least altered; indeed, to my surprise, she was more
embonpoint than before, instead of having the haggard worn air that I
had expected, and though she wept at first, she was soon again
smiling.
Eustace, Baron Walwyn and Ribaumont, as he now unfortunately had
become, sat by me. He was much taller than when we had parted, for
had not then reached his full height, and he looked the taller from
being very thin. His moustache and pointed beard had likewise
changed him, but there was clear bright colour on his cheek, and his
dear brown eyes shone upon me with their old sweetness; so that it
was not till we had been together some little time that I found that
the gay merry lad whom I had left had become not only a man, but a
very grave and thoughtful man.
Annora was a fine creature, well grown, and with the clearest,
freshest complexion, of the most perfect health, yet so pure and
delicate, that one looked at her like a beautiful flower; but it
somehow struck me that she had a discontented and almost defiant
expression. She seemed to look at me with a sort of distrust, and to
be with difficulty polite to Madame d'Aubepine, while she was almost
rude to the Abbe. She scarcely uttered a word of French, and made a
little cry and gesture of disgust, when Gaspard replied to her in his
native tongue, poor child.
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