ut my superior's. As soon as you arrive in
Paris, I will come and see you, as also my adopted mother, and my dear
brother, Agricola."

"Well--if it must be. I have been a soldier, and know what subordination
is," said Dagobert, much annoyed. "One must put a good face on bad
fortune. So, the day after to-morrow, in the Rue Brise-Miche, my boy;
for they tell me I can be in Paris by to-morrow evening, and we set out
almost immediately. But I say--there seems to be a strict discipline
with you fellows!"

"Yes, it is strict and severe," answered Gabriel, with a shudder, and a
stifled sigh.

"Come, shake hands--and let's say farewell for the present. After all,
twenty-four hours will soon pass away."

"Adieu! adieu!" replied the missionary, much moved, whilst he returned
the friendly pressure of the veteran's hand.

"Adieu, Gabriel!" added the orphans, sighing also, and with tears in
their eyes.

"Adieu, my sisters!" said Gabriel--and he left the room with Rodin, who
had not lost a word or an incident of this scene.

Two hours after, Dagobert and the orphans had quitted the Castle for
Paris, not knowing that Djalma was left at Cardoville, being still
too much injured to proceed on his journey. The half-caste, Faringhea,
remained with the young prince, not wishing, he said, to desert a fellow
countryman.

We now conduct the reader to the Rue Brise-Miche, the residence of
Dagobert's wife.

CHAPTER XXVII. DAGOBERT'S WIFE.

The following scenes occur in Paris, on the morrow of the day when the
shipwrecked travellers were received in Cardoville House.

Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of the Rue Brise-Miche, one
end of which leads into the Rue Saint-Merry, and the other into the
little square of the Cloister, near the church. At this end, the street,
or rather alley--for it is not more than eight feet wide--is shut in
between immense black, muddy dilapidated walls, the excessive height of
which excludes both air and light; hardly, during the longest days
of the year, is the sun able to throw into it a few straggling beams;
whilst, during the cold damps of winter, a chilling fog, which seems to
penetrate everything, hangs constantly above the miry pavement of this
species of oblong well.

It was about eight o'clock in the evening; by the faint, reddish light
of the street lamp, hardly visible through the haze, two men, stopping
at the angle of one of those enormous walls, exchanged a few words
toget