him; but, pretending to go down, I came up again, and seated myself on the top stair, listening.  No doubt, to calm himself entirely, the marshal went to embrace his children, for I heard him open and shut their door.  Then he returned to his room, and walked about for a long time, but with a more quiet step.  At last, I heard him throw himself on his bed, and I came down about break of day.  After that, all remained tranquil.”

“But whatever can be the matter with him, father?”

“I do not know.  When I went up to him, I was astonished at the agitation of his countenance, and the brilliancy of his eyes.  He would have looked much the same, had he been delirious, or in a burning fever—­so that, when I heard him say, he could have thrown himself out of the window, had it been open, I thought it more prudent to remove the caps from his pistols.”

“I cannot understand it!” said Agricola.  “So firm, intrepid, and cool a man as the marshal, a prey to such violence!”

“I tell you that something very extraordinary is passing within him.  For two days, he has not been to see his children, which is always a bad sign with him—­to say nothing of the poor little angels themselves, who are miserable at the notion that they have displeased their father.  They displease him!  If you only knew the life they lead, dear creatures! a walk or ride with me and their companion, for I never let them go out alone, and, the rest of their time, at their studies, reading, or needlework—­always together—­and then to bed.  Yet their duenna, who is, I think, a worthy woman, tells me that sometimes at night, she has seen them shed tears in their sleep.  Poor children! they have hitherto known but little happiness,” added the soldier, with a sigh.

At this moment, hearing some one walk hastily across the courtyard, Dagobert raised his eyes, and saw Marshal Simon, with pale face and bewildered air, holding in his two hands a letter, which he seemed to read with devouring anxiety.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The golden city.

While Marshal Simon was crossing the little court with so agitated an air, reading the anonymous letter, which he had received by Spoil-sport’s unexpected medium, Rose and Blanche were alone together, in the sitting room they usually occupied, which had been entered for a moment by Loony during their absence.  The poor children seemed destined to a succession of sorrows.  At the moment their mourning for their mother drew near its close, the tragical death of their grandfather had again dressed them in funereal weeds.  They were seated together upon a couch, in front of their work-table.  Grief often produces the effect of years.  Hence, in a few months, Rose and Blanche had become quite young women.  To the infantine grace of their charming faces, formerly so plump and rosy, but now pale and thin, had succeeded an expression of grave and touching sadness.  Their large, mild eyes of limpid azure, which always had a dreamy character, were now never bathed in those joyous tears, with which a burst of frank and hearty laughter used of old to adorn their silky lashes, when the comic coolness of Dagobert, or some funny trick of Spoil-sport, cheered them in the course of their long and weary pilgrimage.