wing you, permit
me nevertheless to address you. The wisest and dearest of women has
opened her heart to me. I believe that you are worthy of having been
loved by her, and I invite you to our home. Innocence and peace reign
within it; you will find there friendship, hospitality, esteem, and
confidence.

WOLMAR.

P.S.--Come, my friend; we wait you with eagerness. Do not grieve me by a
refusal.

JULIE.

FROM SAINT PREUX TO MYLORD EDOUARD

I have seen her, mylord! She has called me her friend--her dear friend.
I am happier than ever I was in my life.

Yet when I approached M. de Wolmar's house at Clarens, I was in a state
of frantic nervousness. Could I bear to see my old love in the
possession of another? Would I not be driven to despair? As the carriage
neared Clarens, I wished that it would break down. When I dismounted I
awaited Julie in mortal anxiety. She came running and calling out to me,
she seized me in her arms. All my terrors were banished, I knew no
feeling but joy.

M. de Wolmar, meanwhile, was standing beside us. She turned to him, and
introduced me to him as her old friend. "If new friends have less ardour
than old ones," he said to me as he embraced me, "they will be old
friends in their turn, and will yield nothing to others." My heart was
exhausted, I received his embraces passively.

When we reached the drawing-room she disappeared for a moment, and
returned--not alone. She brought her two children with her, darling
little boys, who bore on their countenances the charm and the
fascination of their mother. A thousand thoughts rushed into my mind, I
could not speak; I took them in my arms, and welcomed their innocent
caresses.

The children withdrew, and M. de Wolmar was called away. I was alone
with Julie. I was conscious of a painful restraint; she was seemingly at
ease, and I became gradually reassured. We talked of my travels, and of
her married life; there was no mention of our old relations.

I came to realise how Julie was changed, and yet the same. She is a
matron, the happy mother of children, the happy mistress of a prosperous
household. Her old love is not extinguished; but it is subdued by
domestic peace and by her unalterable virtue--let me add, by the trust
and kindness of her elderly husband, whose unemotional goodness has been
just what was needed to