nd 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!"

"A secret to tell you."

"A secret?"

"Yes, to be sure."

"Ah, and a very great secret!" added Rose, quite seriously.

"A secret which concerns us both," resumed Blanche.

"Faith! I should think so. What concerns the one always concerns the
other. Are you not always, as the saying goes, 'two faces under one
hood?'"

"Truly, how can it be otherwise, when you put our heads under the great
hood of your pelisse?" said Rose, laughing.

"There they are again, mocking-birds! One never has the last word with
them. Come, ladies, your secret, since a secret there is."

"Speak, sister," said Rose.

"No, miss, it is for you to speak. You are to-day on duty, as eldest, and
such an important thing as telling a secret like that you talk of belongs
of right to the elder sister. Come, I am listening to you," added the
soldier, as he forced a smile, the better to conceal from the maidens how
much he still felt the unpunished affronts of the brute tamer.

It was Rose (who, as Dagobert said, was doing duty as eldest) that spoke
for herself and for her sister.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SECRET.

"First of all, good Dagobert," said Rose, in a gracefully caressing
manner, "as we are going to tell our secret--you must promise not to
scold us."

"You will not scold your darlings, will you?" added Blanche, in a no less
coaxing voice.

"Granted!" replied Dagobert gravely; "particularly as I should not well
know how to set about it--but why should I scold you."

"Because we ought perhaps to have told you sooner what we are going to
tell you."

"Listen, my children," said Dagobert sententiously, after reflecting a
moment on this case of conscience; "one of two things must be. Either you
were right, or else you were wrong, to hide th