vulgar teachers whose
democratic theories were just beginning to be whispered about. Some
were young, buoyant, and hopeful, ready to shed the last drop for
the principles they professed; others were old gray-headed men, tried
servants of Monarchy for half a century. But all were like-minded, and
self-gratulation and compliment was the order of the day. Leaving them
thus to such pleasant converse, where the clank of jewelled swords or
the tap of a diamond snuff-box formed the meet accompaniments of the
themes, we turn once more to her in whose fate we are more deeply
interested.

Twice had she rung the bell to ask if the messenger had not returned.
At last he came; but there was "no answer to her note." Her impatience
became extreme. She ordered the servant who carried the note to appear
before her; questioned him closely as to whether he had taken it, and
the reply he had received. A soldier had said, "Gut!" and shut the door.
Poor Kate! It was her first lesson in "soldier laconics," and to say
truly, she did not take it well. The "Princesse de Midchekoff" might
have been treated with more deference. She was passing a mirror as the
thought struck her, and her mien and air gave support to the belief; nor
could she restrain the sense of admiration, half tinged with shame, her
own beauty evoked.

"There is a soldier here, Madame," said a servant, "who has a letter he
will not deliver except into your own hands."

"Admit him--at once," said she, impatiently; and as she spoke the
soldier stepped forward, and drawing himself up, carried his hand to the
salute, while, presenting a letter, he said, "From the Field-Marshal von
Auersberg."

Kate scarcely looked at the bearer, but hastily tore open the
square-shaped epistle.

"You need not wait," said she to the servant; and then turning to the
letter, read,----

"'Madame la Princesse and beloved Niece,--It was with--to me
of late years----a rare satisfaction that I read the not the
less affectionate that they were polite lines you vouchsafed
to inscribe to me, an old and useless but not forgotten
servant of an Imperial master. Immediately on perusing the
aforesaid so-called note, I despatched my adjutant to the
head-quarters of the Franz Carl, to obtain----no service
rules to the contrary forbidding, nor any default's punition
in any wise preventing----a day's furlough for the Cadet von
Dalton--"

"What regiment is your