“They are not seen in Flanders,” said Mademoiselle with a sigh.
“That’s an odd remark,” said Mr. ——, smiling.
It was with regret he left a society in which he found himself so happy; but he settled with La Roche and his daughter a plan of correspondence, and they took his promise that, if ever he came within fifty leagues of their dwelling, he should travel those fifty leagues to visit them.
About three years after, our philosopher was on a visit at Geneva; the promise he made to La Roche and his daughter, on his former visit, was recalled to his mind by the view of that range of mountains on a part of which they had often looked together. There was a reproach, too, conveyed along with the recollection, for his having failed to write to either for several months past. The truth was, that indolence was the habit most natural to him, from which he was not easily roused by the claims of correspondence, either of his friends or of his enemies; when the latter drew their pens in controversy, they were often unanswered as well as the former. While he was hesitating about a visit to La Roche, which he wished to make, but found the effort rather too much for him, he received a letter from the old man, which had been forwarded to him from Paris, where he had then fixed his residence. It contained a gentle complaint of Mr. ——’s want of punctuality, but an assurance of continued gratitude for his former good offices; and, as a friend whom the writer considered interested in his family, it informed him of the approaching nuptials of Mademoiselle La Roche with a young man, a relation of her own, and formerly a pupil of her father’s, of the most amiable dispositions and respectable character. Attached from their earliest years, they had been separated by his joining one of the subsidiary regiments of the canton, then in the service of a foreign power. In this situation he had distinguished himself as much for courage and military skill as for the other endowments which he had cultivated at home. The time of his service was now expired, and they expected him to return in a few weeks, when the old man hoped, as he expressed it in his letter, to join their hands and see them happy before he died.