Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/167

Rh when I saw a young man, of remarkably agreeable exterior, hastily come across the deck and approach us with joyful looks. He placed himself before my traveling companion, and exclaimed:

“Penchaud!”

Penchaud looked up, uttered an exclamation of joy, his whole countenance brightened, and the two men were clasped in each other's arms.

They had been fellow students in Lausanne, at the time when, according to M. Penchaud's expression, the young girls in the city envied the youths their happiness in being students under such teachers as Alexandre Vinet, Choroles Schritau, and others, and when, according to Penchaud's own account, these youths assembled for conversation on the highest subjects, and remained together discussing them till one or two o'clock in the morning, and then walked home, arm in arm, in a regular intoxication of friendship.

Eight years had passed since all this. Penchaud, after having traveled on foot through France, preaching the gospel and disseminating the Holy Scriptures, had married in Switzerland, and settled down in one of the high valleys. Young Vogel, his friend, had become a teacher in the Tecknological Institute, at Wurtemburg. They had not seen each other through the whole of this period. On Penchaud's arrival in Zürich, Vogel's mother had telegraphed the news to her son.

“And thou hast come all this way merely for my sake,” exclaimed Penchaud, with emotion, “just at the moment when I am leaving!”