“And from whom, then?”

“You shall know that by and by.”

“Well, then—­since you have a Gabriel of your own—­there is the more reason that you should love ours.”

“Yours! but who is yours?  I am on thorns till you tell me.”

“You know, Dagobert,” resumed Rose, “that Blanche and I are accustomed to fall asleep, holding each other by the hand.”

“Yes, yes, I have often seen you in your cradle.  I was never tired of looking at you; it was so pretty.”

“Well, then—­two nights ago, we had just fallen asleep, when we beheld—­”

“Oh, it was in a dream!” cried Dagobert.  “Since you were asleep, it was in a dream!”

“Certainly, in a dream—­how else would you have it?”

“Pray let my sister go on with her tale!”

“All, well and good!” said the soldier with a sigh of satisfaction; “well and good!  To be sure, I was tranquil enough in any case—­because—­but still—­I like it better to be a dream.  Continue, my little Rose.”

“Once asleep, we both dreamt the same thing.”

“What! both the same?”

“Yes, Dagobert; for the next morning when we awoke we related our two dreams to each other.”

“And they were exactly alike.”

“That’s odd enough, my children; and what was this dream all about?”

“In our dream, Blanche and I were seated together, when we saw enter a beautiful angel, with a long white robe, fair locks, blue eyes, and so handsome and benign a countenance, that we elapsed our hands as if to pray to him.  Then he told us, in a soft voice, that he was called Gabriel; that our mother had sent him to be our guardian angel, and that he would never abandon us.”

“And, then,” added Blanche, “he took us each by the hand, and, bending his fair face over us, looked at us for a long time in silence, with so much goodness—­with so much goodness, that we could not withdraw our eyes from his.”

“Yes,” resumed Rose, “and his look seemed, by turns, to attract us, or to go to our hearts.  At length, to our great sorrow, Gabriel quitted us, having told us that we should see him again the following night.”

“And did he make his appearance?”

“Certainly.  Judge with what impatience we waited the moment of sleep, to see if our friend would return, and visit us in our slumbers.”

“Humph!” said Dagobert, scratching his forehead; “this reminds me, young ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending to be half asleep.  I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner, and to get to your dream as fast as possible.”

“Yes, Dagobert.”

“The reason being, you could not say to me, as you would to Spoil-sport:  Lie down, Dagobert!  Well—­so your friend Gabriel came back?”

“Yes, and this time he talked to us a great deal, and gave us, in the name of our mother, such touching, such noble counsels, that the next day, Rose and I spent our whole time in recalling every word of our guardian angel—­and his face, and his look—­”