ed.
I had visits to make to the ancient and curious houses in the
neighborhood, where lived all the kind old women who, in the past
summer, had lavished upon me their most luscious grapes as if they were
my feudal due;--there was in particular a certain Madame Jeanne, a rich
old peasant, who had taken so great a fancy to me that she liked to
humor my every whim, and who, for my amusement, every time she passed on
her way, like Nausicaa, from the washing-place, looked comically out of
the corner of her eyes towards my uncle's house. And, too, there were
the surrounding vineyards, and woods, and mountain paths; and beyond,
Castelnau, rearing its battlements and towers above the pedestal of
chestnuts and oak trees, called me to its ruins! Where should I run
first, and how could I ever weary of so beautiful a land!

The sea, to which I was now scarcely ever taken, was for the moment
completely forgotten.

After these two happy months school was to re-open. I could not bear
to think of it, but its monotony would be broken by a great event, the
return of my brother. His four years were not quite completed; but we
knew that he had already left the "mysterious island," and we expected
him to arrive home in October. For me it would be like becoming
acquainted with a stranger. I was somewhat anxious to know whether he
would love me when he met me, if he would approve of a thousand little
things I did,--how, for instance, my way of playing Beethoven would
please him.

I thought constantly of his approaching arrival; I was so overjoyed, and
I anticipated with so keen a delight the change his coming would make in
my life, that I did not feel a particle of the melancholy which usually
beset me in the autumn.

I meant to consult him about a thousand troublous matters, to confide to
him all my anguish and uncertainty in regard to the future; I knew also
that my parents depended upon him to give them definite advice about me,
and expected him to direct me towards a scientific career: that was the
one dark spot upon his return.

Awaiting his dread decision, I threw aside all care and amused myself
as gayly as possible; I put even less restraint than usual upon myself
during the vacation which I regarded as likely to be the very last of my
childhood.

CHAPTER LXIX.

After the noon dinner it was the custom in my uncle's house to sit for
an hour or two in the entry-way of the house, that vestibule inlaid with
flagstones