pelisse, and suspended it from the spring-catch of the curtainless window, using the skirts to stop up as closely as possible the two openings made by the breaking of the panes.     

       “Thanks, Dagobert, how good you are! We were very uneasy at not seeing you.”      

       “Yes, you were absent longer than usual. But what is the matter with you?”        added Rose, only just then perceiving that his countenance was disturbed and pallid, for he was still under the painful influence of the brawl with Morok; “how pale you are!”      

       “Me, my pets?—Oh, nothing.”      

       “Yes, I assure you, your countenance is quite changed. Rose is right.”      

       “I tell you there is nothing the matter,” answered the soldier, not without some embarrassment, for he was little used to deceive; till, finding an excellent excuse for his emotion, he added: “If I do look at all uncomfortable, it is your fright that has made me so, for indeed it was my fault.”      

       “Your fault!”      

       “Yes; for if I had not lost so much time at supper, I should have been here when the window was broken, and have spared you the fright.”      

       “Anyhow, you are here now, and we think no more of it.”      

       “Why don’t you sit down?”      

       “I will, my children, for we have to talk together,” said Dagobert, as he drew a chair close to the head of the bed.     

       “Now tell me, are you quite awake?” he added, trying to smile in order to reassure them. “Are those large eyes properly open?”      

       “Look, Dagobert!” cried the two girls, smiling in their turn, and opening their blue eyes to the utmost extent.     

       “Well, well,” said the soldier, “they are yet far enough, from shutting; besides, it is only nine o’clock.”      

       “We also have something to tell, Dagobert,” resumed Rose, after exchanging glances with her sister.     

       “Indeed!”      

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