Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/97

Rh were interchanged between them at least twenty times in a second. They seemed to devour the Huron's pictures with their eyes. They asked one after another, and even both at once, at what time, in what place, and how these miniatures fell into the hands of the nurse? They reckoned and computed the time from the captain's departure; they recollected having received notice that he had penetrated as far as the country of the Hurons; and from that time they had never heard anything more of him.

The Huron had told them that he had never known either father or mother. The prior, who was a man of sense, observed that he had a little beard, and he knew very well that the Hurons never had any. His chin was somewhat hairy; he was therefore the son of a European. His brother and sister-in-law were never seen after the expedition against the Hurons, in 1669. His nephew must then have been nursing at the breast; the Huron nurse has preserved his life, and been a mother to him. At length, after a hundred questions and answers, the prior and his sister concluded that the Huron was their own nephew. They embraced him, while tears streamed from their eyes, and the Huron laughed to think that an Indian should be nephew to a prior of Lower Brittany.

All the company went downstairs. Mr. de St. Yves, who was a great physiognomist, compared the two pictures with the Huron's countenance.