all we have left! Do you think it did not grieve me to part
with our fine cow which I had raised myself? I wept for her all last
night, and would have given away my hand rather than sell her. But no
one would have paid any thing for my old hand. We had to have money to
pay your wages, so as not to be obliged to listen longer to your
continued importunities. That was the reason why my good old man took
the cow to town. It cut him to the quick to hear you dunning us all the
time for a few dollars."

The servant-girl cast down her eyes and blushed. "I did not mean any
harm, Mde. Katharine," she said, in confusion. "It was mere talk; I
always hoped master would take a lesson from me and dun the count in the
same manner for his own wages. But the great lords are living
sumptuously, and do not care whether their servants are starving to
death or not!"

"Our count, Martha, does not live sumptuously," said Katharine, heaving
a sigh. "The French destroyed his palace, and--but hush! Did you not
hear something outside? I thought I heard some one call."

The two women were silent and listened; but nothing was to be heard. The
storm was howling, and rattling the windows. At times an iron hand
seemed to pass across the panes--it was the snow which the wind lashed
against the house as if intending to awaken the inmates from their
slumbers.

"A terrible night!" murmured Katharine, shuddering. "I hope that my dear
old man won't return in such a storm, but stop with one of his friends
at the neighboring village. Heaven preserve any human being out in such
a night as this on the highway, and from--"

A loud knock at the window-panes interrupted her, and a voice outside
shouted imperiously, "Open the door!"

The two women uttered a shrill scream, and Martha clung anxiously and
with both her hands to Katharine's arm.

"I beseech you, Mde. Katharine," she whispered with quivering lips,
"don't open. It is assuredly Old Nick or the French that want to come
in!"

"Fiddlesticks! The devil does not wait for the door to open, but comes
down the flue," said Katharine; "and as to the French, the
_Parlez-vous_, why, they cannot speak German. Just listen how they are
commanding and begging outside. 'Open the door!' Well, yes, yes! I am
coming. No one shall say that old Katharine suffered people to freeze to
death in the forest while she had fire on her hearth." Disengaging
herself from Martha's grasp, she hastened to the door, and opening i