rs, after having carried the
battery. Ah, my children!" continued the soldier, with the utmost
simplicity, "I wish you had, seen your brave father, at the head of our
brigade of horse, rushing on in a desperate charge in the thick of a
shower of shells!--There was nothing like it--not a soul so grand as he!"

Whilst Dagobert thus expressed, in his own way, his regrets and
recollections, the two orphans--by a spontaneous movement, glided gently
from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went together to
kneel at the foot of the old oak. And there, closely pressed in each
other's arms, they began to weep; whilst the soldier, standing behind
them, with his hands crossed on his long staff, rested his bald front
upon it.

"Come, come you must not fret," said he softly, when, after a pause of a
few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and
Blanche, still on their knees. "Perhaps we may find General Simon in
Paris," added he; "I will explain all that to you this evening at the
inn. I purposely waited for this day, to tell you many things about your
father; it was an idea of mine, because this day is a sort of
anniversary."

"We weep because we think also of our mother," said Rose.

"Of our mother, whom we shall only see again in heaven," added Blanche.

The soldier raised the orphans, took each by the hand, and gazing from
one to the other with ineffable affection, rendered still the more
touching by the contrast of his rude features, "You must not give way
thus, my children," said he; "it is true your mother was the best of
women. When she lived in Poland, they called her the Pearl of Warsaw--it
ought to have been the Pearl of the Whole World--for in the whole world
you could not have found her match. No--no!"

The voice of Dagobert faltered; he paused, and drew his long gray
moustache between finger and thumb, as was his habit. "Listen, my girls,"
he resumed, when he had mastered his emotion; "your mother could give you
none but the best advice, eh?"

"Yes Dagobert."

"Well, what instructions did she give you before she died? To think often
of her, but without grieving?"

"It is true; she told us than our Father in heaven, always good to poor
mothers whose children are left on earth, would permit her to hear us
from above," said Blanche.

"And that her eyes would be ever fixed upon us," added Rose.

And the two, by a spontaneous impulse, replete with the most touching
grace, joined