The conduct which his parents had ascribed to indifference really sprang from affection; he had neither obeyed the voice of ambition nor of avarice, nor even the nobler inspiration of inventive genius: his whole motive and single aim had been the happiness of Genevieve and Michael.

The day for proving his gratitude had come, and he had returned them sacrifice for sacrifice! After the explanations and exclamations of joy were over, all three were about to leave me; but, the cloth being laid, I added three more places, and kept them to breakfast.
The meal was prolonged: the fare was only tolerable; but the over-flowings of affection made it delicious.

Never had I better understood the unspeakable charm of family love.

What calm enjoyment in that happiness which is always shared with others; in that community of interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of existences which forms one single being of so many! What is man without those home affections, which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in the earth, and permit him to imbibe all the juices of life?
Energy, happiness--do not all these come from them?
Without family life where would man learn to love, to associate, to deny himself?
A community in little, is it not this which teaches us how to live in the great one?
Such is the holiness of home, that, to express our relation with God, we have been obliged to borrow the words invented for our family life.

Men have named themselves the sons of a heavenly Father! Ah! let us carefully preserve these chains of domestic union.