"Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it," said the orphans, growing more and more astonished as he proceeded.
"Is it not strange—this man with a black seam on his forehead?"
"Well, you shall hear. The general had, as I told you, been left for dead at Waterloo. During the night which he passed on the field of battle, in a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every effort to revive him. But as your father, whose senses were still wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it only remained to die—it appeared as if this man replied to him; 'You must live for Eva!' meaning your mother, whom the general had left at Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France."
"How strange, Dagobert!—And since then, did our father never see this man?"
"Yes, he saw him—for it was he who brought news of the general to your poor mother."
"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."