“Oh, grandpa, what could that be?” exclaimed little Walter.

“Wait a moment and you shall hear,” was the reply.

“What the captain brought on coming back was a wax baby, a very life-like representation of an infant six months old.  He said it was a wax cast of the Dauphin of France, that poor unfortunate son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette; that he had found it in a convent, and paid for it a sum of money so enormous that he would never tell any one, not even his wife, how large it was.”

“But it isn’t in existence now, at this late day, surely?” Mrs. Dinsmore remarked inquiringly, as her husband paused in his narrative.

“It is claimed that it is by those who have such a thing in possession, and I presume they tell the truth.  It has always been preserved with extreme care as a great curiosity.

“The little girl to whom it was given by her father lived to grow up, but has been dead many years.  Shortly before her death she gave it to a friend, and it has been in that family for over forty years.”

“And is it on exhibition, papa?” asked Elsie.

“Only to such as are fortunate enough to get an introduction to the lady owner through some friend of hers; so I understand; but photographs have been taken and are for sale in the stores.”

“Oh, I hope we will get to see it!” exclaimed Lulu eagerly.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m bound to manage it somehow,” said Betty.

“How much I should like to know what was really the true story of that poor unfortunate child,” said Elsie, reflectively, and sighing as she spoke.

“It—­like the story of the Man in the Iron Mask—­is a mystery that will never be satisfactorily cleared up until the Judgment Day,” remarked her father.

“Oh, do tell us about it,” the children cried in eager chorus.

“All of you older ones have certainly some knowledge of the French Revolution, in which Louis XVI. and his beautiful queen lost their lives?” Mr. Dinsmore said, glancing about upon his grandchildren; “and have not forgotten that two children survived them—­one sometimes called Louis XVII., as his father’s lawful successor to the throne, and a daughter older than the boy.

“These children remained in the hands of their cruel foes for some time after the beheading of their royal parents.  The girl was finally restored to her mother’s relatives, the royal family of Austria; but the boy, who was most inhumanly treated by his jailer, was supposed to have died in consequence of that brutal abuse, having first been reduced by it to a state of extreme bodily and mental weakness.

“That story (of the death of the poor little dauphin, I mean, not of the cruel treatment to which he was subjected) has, however, been contradicted by another; and I suppose it will never be made certain in this world which was the true account.

“The dauphin was born in 1785, his parents were beheaded in 1793; so that he must have been about eight years old at the time of their death.