He therefore resolved to watch and examine into the state of things between the two young people, and learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was irresistible.

None but an old man could have shown such deliberate wisdom.

Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little things around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was hanging at a corner of the chimney-piece.
"These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands," he said, taking up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it, saying, "This is ugly too.

Why do you keep such a common thing in your pretty room ?" "Oh, please let me have it, godfather." "No, no, you shall have another to-morrow." So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before his own saint's day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the abbe's patron.

This little dot, no larger than a pin's head, had been seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles! The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him than for others.