“When was that? We never heard of it.”
“You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine forest with old Fedora?”
“Yes,” answered Rose, mournfully; “to fetch some heath, of which our mother was so fond.”
“Poor mother!” added Blanche; “she appeared so well that morning, that we could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night.”
“True, my children; I sang and worked that morning in the garden, expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen. Well, as I was singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French: ‘Is this the village of Milosk?’—I turned round, and saw before me a stranger; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell back two steps, quite stupefied.”
“Ah, why?”
“He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead; but his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it.”
“Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle?”
“Yes—it was he.”
“But, Dagobert,” said Rose, thoughtfully, “is it not a long time since these battles?”