ere than we should be in the
cold before Sebastopol."

The next few days passed pleasantly; sometimes the countess was not
present, and then the girls would devote themselves to improving the
boys' Russian.

Sometimes two sledges would come to the door, and two of the girls
accompanied the boys on their drive. On the fourth evening, Count
Smerskoff called, and a cloud fell upon the atmosphere.

The countess received him ceremoniously, and maintained the
conversation in frigid tones. The girls scarcely opened their lips,
and the midshipmen sat apart, as silent as if they understood no word
of what was passing.

"I am sorry, countess," the commandant said, "that I was obliged to
quarter these two English boys upon you, but every house in the town
is full of sick and wounded; and as they were given over to me as
officers, though they look to me more like ship-boys, I could not put
them in prison with the twenty or thirty soldiers whom we captured at
the victory on the heights above Inkerman."

"It is my duty to receive them," the countess said very coldly, "and
it therefore matters little whether it is pleasant or otherwise.
Fortunately one of them speaks a few words of French, and my daughters
can therefore communicate with them. So you have twenty or thirty
English prisoners in the jail? Where are all the rest; for, of course,
in such a great victory, we must have taken, some thousands of
prisoners?"

The count glanced angrily at her.

"They have, no doubt, been sent to Odessa and other places," he said.
"You do not doubt, countess, surely, that a great victory was gained
by the soldiers of his Majesty?"

"Doubt," the countess said, in a tone of slight surprise. "Have I not
read the official bulletins describing the victory? Only we poor
women, of course, are altogether ignorant of war, and cannot
understand how it is that, when they are always beaten, these enemies
of the Czar are still in front of Sebastopol."

"It may be," said the count, "that the Archdukes are only waiting
until all the reinforcements arrive to drive them into the sea, or
capture them to the last man."

"No doubt it is that," said the countess blandly, "but from the number
of sick and wounded who arrive here, to say nothing of those taken to
Odessa and the other towns among which, as you say, the prisoners are
distributed, it is to be wished that the reinforcements may soon be
up, so as to bring the fighting to an end."

"The enemy a