第172章

"You are right.She will tell us all about it; and when we know, Dagobert may scold us, or try to make great ladies of us, but we will be as obstinate as he is."

"That is it; we must show some spirit! We will prove to him, as he says himself, that we have soldier's blood in our veins."

"We will say to him: `Suppose, as you say, we should one day be rich, my good Dagobert, we shall only remember this time with the more pleasure."

"It is agreed then, is it not, Rose? The first time we are alone with Mother Bunch, we must make her our confidant, and ask her for information.She is so good a person, that she will not refuse us."

"And when father comes home, he will be pleased, I am sure, with our courage."

"And will approve our wish to support ourselves, as if we were alone in the world."

On these words of her sister, Rose started.A cloud of sadness, almost of alarm, passed over her charming countenance, as she exclaimed: "Oh, sister, what a horrible idea!"

"What is the matter? your look frightens me."

"At the moment I heard you say, that our father would approve our wish to support ourselves, as if we were alone in the world--a frightful thought struck me--I know not why--but feel how my heart beats--just as if some misfortune were about to happen us."

"It is true; your poor heart beats violently.But what was this thought?

You alarm me."

"When we were prisoners, they did not at least separate us, and, besides, the prison was a kind of shelter--"

"A sad one, though shared with you."

"But if, when arrived here, any accident had parted us from Dagobert--if we had been left alone, without help, in this great town?"

"Oh, sister! do not speak of that.It would indeed be terrible.What would become of us, kind heaven?"

This cruel thought made the girls remain for a moment speechless with emotion.Their sweet faces, which had just before glowed with a noble hope, grew pale and sad.After a pretty long silence, Rose uplifted her eyes, now filled with tears, "Why does this thought," she said, trembling, "affect us so deeply, sister? My heart sinks within me, as if it were really to happen to us."

"I feel as frightened as you yourself.Alas! were we both to be lost in this immense city, what would become of us?"

"Do not let us give way to such ideas, Blanche! Are we not here in Dagobert's house, in the midst of good people?"

"And yet, sister," said Rose, with a pensive air, "it is perhaps good for us to have had this thought."

"Why so?"

"Because we shall now find this poor lodging all the better, as it affords a shelter from all our fears.And when, thanks to our labor, we are no longer a burden to any one, what more can we need until the arrival of our father?"

"We shall want for nothing--there you are right--but still, why did this thought occur to us, and why does it weigh so heavily on our minds?"

"Yes, indeed--why? Are we not here in the midst of friends that love us?

How could we suppose that we should ever be left alone in Paris? It is impossible that such a misfortune should happen to us--is it not, my dear sister?"

"Impossible!" said Rose, shuddering."If the day before we reached that village in Germany, where poor Jovial was killed, any one had said to us:

`To-morrow, you will be in prison'--we should have answered as now: `It is impossible.Is not Dagobert here to protect us; what have we to fear?' And yet, sister, the day after we were in prison at Leipsic."

"Oh! do not speak thus, my dear sister! It frightens me."

By a sympathetic impulse, the orphans took one another by the hand, while they pressed close together, and looked around with involuntary fear.

The sensation they felt was in fact deep, strange, inexplicable, and yet lowering--one of those dark presentiments which come over us, in spite of ourselves--those fatal gleams of prescience, which throw a lurid light on the mysterious profundities of the future.

Unaccountable glimpses of divination! often no sooner perceived than forgotten--but, when justified by the event, appearing with all the attributes of an awful fatality!

The daughters of Marshal Simon were still absorbed in the mournful reverie which these singular thoughts had awakened, when Dagobert's wife, returning from her son's chamber, entered the room with a painfully agitated countenance.