frame, discovered to view a small interstice, which was so cleverly contrived that it revealed all that was passing in the drawing-room now occupied by Cavalcanti and Andrea. The young man closed the door behind him, and advanced toward the major, who had risen when he heard steps approaching.
"Ah! my dear father!" said Andrea, in a loud voice, in order that the count might hear him in the next room, "is it really you?"
"How do you do, my dear son?" said the major gravely.
"After so many years of painful separation," said Andrea, in the same tone of voice, and glancing toward the door, "what a happiness it is to meet again!"
"Indeed it is, after so long a separation."
"Will you not embrace me, sir?" said Andrea.
"If you wish it, my son," said the major. And the two men embraced each other after the fashion of actors on the stage; that is to say, each rested his head on the other's shoulder.
"Then we are once more reunited?" said Andrea.
"Once more!" replied the major.
"Never more to be separated?"
"Why, as to that I think, my dear son, you must be by this time so accustomed to France as to look upon it almost as a second country."
"The fact is," said the young man, "that I should be exceedingly grieved to leave it."
"As for me, you must know I cannot possibly live out of Lucca; therefore I shall return to Italy as soon as I can."
"But before you leave France, my dear father, I hope you will put me in possession of the documents which will be necessary to prove my descent."
"Certainly, I am come expressly on that account; it has cost me much trouble to find you, but I had resolved on giving them into your hands; and if I had to recommence my search, it would occupy all the few remaining years of my life."
"Where are these papers, then?" said Andrea.
"Here they are."
Andrea seized the certificate of his father's marriage and his own baptismal register, and after having opened them with all the eagerness which might be expected under the circumstances, he read them with a facility which proved that he was accustomed to similar documents, and with an expression which plainly denoted an unusual interest in the contents. When he had perused the documents, an indefinable expression of pleasure lighted up his countenance, and looking at the major with a most peculiar smile, he said, in very excellent Tuscan:
"Then there is no longer any such thing in Italy as the galleys?"
