ts! How I love them! How I venerate
them! How I am elevated by their charity, their courage, their
resignation!"

"I entreat you not to extol me thus," said Gabriel with embarrassment.

"Not extol you!" replied Dagobert. "Hanged if I shouldn't. When I have
gone into the heat of action, did I rush into it alone? Was I not under
the eyes of my commanding officer? Were not my comrades there along with
me? In default of true courage, had I not the instinct of self
preservation to spur me on, without reckoning the excitement of the
shouts and tumult of battle, the smell of the gunpowder, the flourishes
of the trumpets, the thundering of the cannon, the ardor of my horse,
which bounded beneath me as if the devil were at his tail? Need I state
that I also knew that the emperor was present, with his eye upon every
one--the emperor, who, in recompense for a hole being made in my tough
hide, would give me a bit of lace or a ribbon, as plaster for the wound.
Thanks to all these causes, I passed for game. Fair enough! But are you
not a thousand times more game than I, my brave boy; going alone,
unarmed, to confront enemies a hundred times more ferocious than those
whom we attacked--we, who fought in whole squadrons, supported by
artillery, bomb-shells, and case-shot?"

"Excellent father!" cried Agricola, "how noble of you to render to
Gabriel this justice!"

"Oh, dear brother," said Gabriel, "his kindness to me makes him magnify
what was quite natural and simple!"

"Natural!" said the veteran soldier; "yes, natural for gallants who have
hearts of the true temper: but that temper is rare."

"Oh, yes, very rare," said Agricola; "for that kind of courage is the
most admirable of all. Most bravely did you seek almost certain death,
alone, bearing the cross in hand as your only weapon, to preach charity
and Christian brotherhood. They seized you, tortured you; and you await
death and partly endure it, without complaint, without remonstrance,
without hatred, without anger, without a wish for vengeance; forgiveness
issuing from your mouth, and a smile of pity beaming upon your lips; and
this in the depths of forests, where no one could witness your
magnanimity,--none could behold you--and without other desire, after you
were rescued than modestly to conceal blessed wounds under your black
robe! My father is right, by Jove! can you still contend that you are not
as brave as he?"

"And besides, too," resumed Dagobert, "the dear boy