"Courage, my children! you see what a brave father you have. Think only
of the pleasure of greeting him, and remember always the name of the
gallant youth, to whom you will owe that pleasure--for without him your
father would have been killed in India."

"Djalma! we shall never forget him," said Rose.

"And if our guardian angel Gabriel should return," added Blanche, "we
will ask him to watch over Djalma as over ourselves."

"Very well, my children; I am sure that you will forget nothing that
concerns good feeling. But to return to the traveller, who came to visit
your poor mother in Siberia, he had seen the general a month after the
events of which you have read, and at a moment when he was about to
enter on a new campaign against the English. It was then that your
father entrusted him with the papers and medal."

"But of what use will this medal be to us, Dagobert?"

"And what is the meaning of these words engraved upon it?" added Rose,
as she drew it from her bosom.

"Why it means, my children, that on the 13th of February, 1832, we must
be at No. 3, Rue Saint Francois, Paris."

"But what are we to do there?"

"Your poor mother was seized so quickly with her last illness, that she
was unable to tell me. All I know is, that this medal came to her from
her parents, and that it had been a relic preserved in her family for
more than a century."

"And how did our father get it?"

"Among the articles which had been hastily thrown into the coach,
when he was removed by force from Warsaw, was a dressing-case of your
mother's, in which was contained this medal. Since that time the general
had been unable to send it back, having no means of communicating with
us, and not even knowing where we were."

"This medal is, then, of great importance to us?"

"Unquestionably; for never, during fifteen years, had I seen your mother
so happy, as on the day the traveller brought it back to her. 'Now,'
said she to me, in the presence of the stranger, and with tears of joy
in her eyes, 'now may my children's future be brilliant as their life
has hitherto been miserable. I will entreat of the governor of Siberia
permission to go to France with my daughters; it will perhaps be thought
I have been sufficiently punished, by fifteen years of exile, and the
confiscation of my property. Should they refuse, I will remain here; but
they will at least allow me to send my children to France, and you must
accompany them, Dagobert. You