In fact, this attack passed, Irene raised herself, and when she could sit up she hung to my neck, shedding silent tears which fell hot upon my cheeks. "Irene, Irene, my dearest, do not weep thus. I shall see you every day." I pressed her hands while my eyes sought hers. She held herself up, and with a familiar motion of her head, full of grace and vivacity, she threw back the big curls which half concealed her tear-stained eyes. Then fastening upon me one of her steady, piercing glances, she said to me: "I believe what you say. Will you not come to see me here, since you cannot come to our house?" "Yes, Mlle. Irene," answered the nurse. "Monsieur will come to see you every day, if you promise to be very good,--not to cry, and to do what the doctor orders you." "Certainly, my dear child; for unless you promise that, you will not see me again," I added, with great seriousness. "You would never again see monsieur," rejoined Madame Paul, with an air of severity. "But, Paul," exclaimed Irene, stamping her little foot with charming fractiousness, "you know very well I shall no longer cry. I shall not be ill any more, for I shall see him every day." The good nurse gave me a touching glance. I quickly embraced Irene, and said to her, "Explain to me, little one, why you are so glad to see me?" "I don't know," she replied, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her brown curls, with an air of sweet, unconscious simplicity. "When you look at me, I cannot help going to you, your eyes draw me; and when you do not look at me, then I feel so badly here," and she placed her hand on her heart. "And then at night, I see you in my dreams, with me and the angels up there." She raised her little finger and her large eyes solemnly towards heaven. Then with a sigh she added, "And, besides, you are good, like Ivan." I could not help starting. Madame Paul, evidently informed of this mysterious adventure, exclaimed: "Mademoiselle, remember what your mother told you." But engrossed in her thoughts, and seeming not to have heard her nurse's remark, Irene continued: "Only, when I dreamt of Ivan and the angels, I never saw my mother up there; but since I dream of you, my mother is always with us. I told mamma so," Irene added, seriously. Madame Paul looked at me again, and bursting into tears said: "Ah, monsieur, all my dread is that this child will not live; her beauty, her gravity, like her ideas and her character, are not suited to her age, are not of this world. Would you believe it, except to the princess, to you, and to me, she never speaks to any one of what she has just said? The princess has impressed upon her not to mention to any one that she saw you here, and I am very sure she never will. Ah, monsieur, I pray Heaven daily that this child may be spared to us."