The contrast between the portrait in my little album of my aunt and her face as I saw it now, told plainly enough how much she had suffered during the past two years.Her hair had become more white, the lines which run from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth were deepened, her eyelids had a withered look.And yet she had never been demonstrative in her grief.I was an observant little boy, and the difference between my mother's character and that of my aunt was precisely indicated to my mind by the difference in their respective sorrow.At that time it was hard for me to understand my aunt's reserve, while I could not suspect her of want of feeling.Now it is to the other sort of nature that I am unjust.My mother also had a tender heart, so tender that she did not feel able to reveal her purpose to me, and it was my Aunt Louise who undertook to do so.She had not consented to be present at the marriage, and M.Termonde, as I afterwards learned, preferred that I should not attend on the occasion, in order, no doubt, to spare the feelings of her who was to become his wife.
In spite of all her self-control, Aunt Louise had tears in her brown eyes when she led me to the far end of the garden, where my father had played when he was a child like myself.The golden tints of September had begun to touch the foliage of the trees.Avine spread its tendrils over the arbor in which we seated ourselves, and wasps were busy among the ripening grapes.My aunt took both my hands in hers, and began: