"Yes, yes," resumed Gabriel; "banish these gloomy ideas. Take courage,
poor children! You must not die. Think of your father."

"Our father?" said Blanche, shuddering; and she continued, with a
mixture of reason and wild excitement, which would have touched the
soul of the most indifferent: "Alas! he will not find us on his return.
Forgive us, father! we did not think to do any harm. We wished, like
you, to do something generous--to help our governess."

"And we did not think to die so quickly, and so soon. Yesterday, we were
gay and happy."

"Oh, good angel! you will appear to our father, even as you have
appeared to us. You will tell him that, in dying--the last thought of
his children--was of him."

"We came here without Dagobert's knowing it--do not let our father scold
him."

"Blessed angel!" resumed the other sister in a still more feeble voice;
"appear to Dagobert, also. Tell him, that we ask his forgiveness, for
the grief our death will occasion him."

"And let our old friend caress our poor Spoil-sport for us--our faithful
guardian," added Blanche, trying to smile.

"And then," resumed Rose, in a voice that was growing still fainter,
"promise to appear to two other persons, that have been so kind to
us--good Mother Bunch--and the beautiful Lady Adrienne."

"We forget none whom we have loved," said Blanche, with a last effort.
"Now, God grant we may go to our mother, never to leave her more!"

"You promised it good angel--you know you did--in the dream. You said
to us: 'Poor children--come from so far--you will have traversed the
earth--to rest on the maternal bosom!'"

"Oh! it is dreadful--dreadful! So young--and no hope!" murmured Gabriel,
as he buried his face in his hands. "Almighty Father! Thy views are
impenetrable. Alas! yet why should these children die this cruel death?"

Rose heaved a deep sigh and said in an expiring tone: "Let us be buried
together!--united in life, in death not divided--"

And the two turned their dying looks upon Gabriel, and stretched out
towards him their supplicating hands.

"Oh, blessed martyrs to a generous devotion!" cried the missionary,
raising to heaven his eyes streaming with tears. "Angelic souls!
treasures of innocence and truth! ascend, ascend to heaven--since God
calls you to him, and the earth is not worthy to possess you!"

"Sister! father!" were the last words that the orphans pronounced with
their dying voices.

And then the twins, by a last ins