“Since your mother sees and hears you,” said Dagobert, much moved, “do not grieve her by fretting.  She forbade you to do so.”

“You are right, Dagobert.  We will not cry any more.”—­And the orphans dried their eyes.

Dagobert, in the opinion of the devout, would have passed for a very heathen.  In Spain, he had found pleasure in cutting down those monks of all orders and colors, who, bearing crucifix in one hand, and poniard in the other, fought not for liberty—­the Inquisition had strangled her centuries ago—­but, for their monstrous privileges.  Yet, in forty years, Dagobert had witnessed so many sublime and awful scenes—­he had been so many times face to face with death—­that the instinct of natural religion, common to every simple, honest heart, had always remained uppermost in his soul.  Therefore, though he did not share in the consoling faith of the two sisters, he would have held as criminal any attempt to weaken its influence.

Seeing them this downcast, he thus resumed:  “That’s right, my pretty ones:  I prefer to hear you chat as you did this morning and yesterday—­laughing at times, and answering me when I speak, instead of being so much engrossed with your own talk.  Yes, yes, my little ladies! you seem to have had famous secrets together these last two days—­so, much the better, if it amuses you.”

The sisters colored, and exchanged a subdued smile, which contrasted with the tears that yet filled their eyes, and Rose said to the soldier, with a little embarrassment.  “No, I assure you, Dagobert, we talk of nothing in particular.”

“Well, well; I don’t wish to know it.  Come, rest yourselves, a few moments more, and then we must start again; for it grows late, and we have to reach Mockern before night, so that we may be early on the road to-morrow.”

“Have we still a long, long way to go?” asked Rose.

“What, to reach Paris?  Yes, my children; some hundred days’ march.  We don’t travel quick, but we get on; and we travel cheap, because we have a light purse.  A closet for you, a straw mattress and a blanket at your door for me, with Spoil-sport on my feet, and a clean litter for old Jovial, these are our whole traveling expenses.  I say nothing about food, because you two together don’t eat more than a mouse, and I have learnt in Egypt and Spain to be hungry only when it suits.”

“Not forgetting that, to save still more, you do all the cooking for us, and will not even let us assist.”

“And to think, good Dagobert, that you wash almost every evening at our resting-place.  As if it were not for us to—­”

“You!” said the soldier, interrupting Blanche, “I, allow you to chap your pretty little hands in soap-suds!  Pooh! don’t a soldier on a campaign always wash his own linen?  Clumsy as you see me, I was the best washerwoman in my squadron—­and what a hand at ironing!  Not to make a brag of it.”

“Yes, yes—­you can iron well—­very well.”