ghter from the blooming lips of Rose and Blanche. Having made the
marshal's daughters laugh, after their long sadness, Loony at once
acquired a claim to the indulgence of the marshal, who said to him, good
humoredly: "What do you want, my lad?"

"It's not me, my lord duke!" answered Loony, laying his hand on his
breast, as if it were taking a vow, so that his feather-brush fell down
from under his arm. The laughter of the girls redoubled.

"It is not you?" said the marshal.

"Here! Spoil-sport!" Dagobert called, for the honest dog seemed to have
a secret dislike for the pretended idiot, and approached him with an
angry air.

"No, my lord duke, it is not me!" resumed Loony. "It is the footman who
told me to tell M. Dagobert, when I brought up the wood to tell my lord
duke, as I was coming up with the basket, that M. Robert wants to see
him."

The girls laughed still more at this new stupidity. But, at the name of
Robert, Marshal Simon started.

M. Robert was the secret emissary of Rodin, with regard to the possible,
but adventurous, enterprise of attempting the liberation of Napoleon II.
After a moment's silence, the marshal, whose face was still radiant with
joy and happiness, said to Loony: "Beg M. Robert to wait for me a moment
in my study."

"Yes, my lord duke," answered Loony, bowing almost to the ground.

The simpleton withdrew, and the marshal said to his daughters, in a
joyous tone, "You see, that, in a moment like this, one does not leave
one's children, even for M. Robert."

"Oh! that's right, father!" cried Blanche, gayly; "for I was already
very angry with this M. Robert."

"Have you pen and paper at hand?" asked the marshal.

"Yes, father; there on the table," said Rose, hastily, as she pointed
to a little desk near one of the windows, towards which the marshal now
advanced rapidly.

From motives of delicacy, the girls remained where they were, close to
the fireplace, and caressed each other tenderly, as if to congratulate
themselves in private on the unexpected happiness of this day.

The marshal seated himself at the desk, and made a sign to Dagobert to
draw near.

While he wrote rapidly a few words in a firm hand, he said to the
soldier with a smile, in so low a tone that it was impossible for his
daughters to hear: "Do you know what I had almost resolved upon, before
entering this room?"

"What, general?"

"To blow my brains out. It is to my children that I owe my life." And
the mar