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.
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