served; and the Pole, finding
him so, soon lost his interest in him, and turned to the ladies.

Anton had now time to look about him. A Vienna piano-forte stood amid
furniture evidently made by the village carpenter, and near the sofa a
tattered carpet was spread over the black boards. The ladies sat on
velvet seats around a worn-out table. The mistress of the house and her
grown-up daughters had elegant Parisian toilettes; but a side door being
casually opened, Anton caught a sight of some children running about in
the next room so scantily clothed that he heartily pitied them. They,
however, did not seem to feel the cold, and were screaming and fighting
like little demons.

A fine damask table-cloth was now laid on the unsteady table, and a
silver tea-kettle put down. The conversation went on most pleasantly.
Graceful French <i>bon mots</i> and animated exclamations in melodious Polish
blended occasionally with an admixture of quiet German. The sudden
bursts of laughter, the gestures and the eagerness, all showed Anton
that he was among foreigners. They spoke rapidly, and excitement shone
in their eyes and reddened their cheeks.

They were a more excitable people, more elastic, and more impressionable
than his countrymen. Anton remarked with amazement how perfectly Lenore
seemed in her element among them. Her face, too, grew flushed; she
laughed and gesticulated like the rest; and her eyes looked, he thought,
boldly into the courteous faces of the gentlemen present. The same
smile, the same hearty, natural manner that she had enchanted him with,
when alone, she now lavished upon strangers, who had acted as highwaymen
against her father's interests. This displeased him to the utmost. Then
the saloon, so incongruous in its arrangements, the carpet dirty and
torn, the children in the next room barefooted, and the master of the
house the secret patron of a dishonest rogue, and perhaps worse still!
Anton contented himself with coldly looking on, and said as little as he
possibly could.

At last a young gentleman struck a few chords on the piano, and all
sprang up and voted for a dance. The lady of the house rang, four
wild-looking men rushed into the room, snatched up the grand piano, and
carried it off. The whole party swept through the hall to an apartment
opposite. Anton was tempted to rub his eyes as he entered it. It was an
empty room, with rough-cast walls, benches around them, and a frightful
old stove in a corn