LIII. HAPPINESS.

Marshal Simon has been absent two days. It is eight o'clock in the
morning. Dagobert, walking on tip-toe with the greatest caution, so as
not to make the floor creak beneath his tread, crosses the room which
leads to the bedchamber of Rose and Blanche and applies his ear to the
door of the apartment. With equal caution, Spoil-sport follows exactly
the movements of his master. The countenance of the soldier is uneasy
and full of thought. As he approaches the door, he says to himself: "I
hope the dear children heard nothing of what happened in the night! It
would alarm them, and it is much better that they should not know it at
present. It might afflict them sadly, poor dears! and they are so gay,
so happy, since they feel sure of their father's love for them. They
bore his departure so bravely! I would not for the world that they
should know of this unfortunate event."

Then as he listened, the soldier resumed: "I hear nothing--and yet they
are always awake so early. Can it be sorrow?"

Dagobert's reflections were here interrupted by two frank, hearty bursts
of laughter, from the interior of the bedroom.

"Come! they are not so sad as I thought," said the soldier, breathing
more freely. "Probably they know nothing about it."

Soon, the laughter was again heard with redoubled force, and the
soldier, delighted at this gayety, so rare on the part of "his
children," was much affected by it: the tears started to his eyes at the
thought that the orphans had at length recovered the serenity natural to
their age; then, passing from one emotion to the other, still listening
at the door, with his body leaning forward, and his hands resting on
his knees, Dagobert's lip quivered with an expression of mute joy, and,
shaking his head a little, he accompanied with his silent laughter,
the increasing hilarity of the young girls. At last, as nothing is so
contagious as gayety, and as the worthy soldier was in an ecstasy of
joy, he finished by laughing aloud with all his might, without knowing
why, and only because Rose and Blanche were laughing. Spoil-sport had
never seen his master in such a transport of delight; he looked at him
for a while in deep and silent astonishment, and then began to bark in a
questioning way.

At this well-known sound, the laughter within suddenly ceased, and a
sweet voice, still trembling with joyous emotion, exclaimed: "Is it you,
Spoil-sport, that have come to wake us?" The dog under