iged to have all his faculties
on full stretch the whole time, to remember every post station, every
bridge and ferry,--the steep mountain passes, where oxen must be
hired,--the frontiers of provinces, where passports are vised."

"Ay, and when the lazy officials will keep you standing in the deep snow
a full hoar at midnight, while they ring every copeck to see it be good
money."

"That's the true and only metal for a coinage," said D'Esmonde, as he
drew forth a gold Napoleon, and placed it in the other's hand. "Take it,
my worthy fellow," said he; "it's part of a debt I owe to every man who
wears the courier's jacket. Had it not been for one of _your_ cloth, I
'd have been drowned at the ford of Ostrovitsch."

"It's the worst ferry in the Empire," said the courier. "The Emperor
himself had a narrow escape there. The raft is one half too small."

"How many days have you taken on the way?" asked D'Esmonde, carelessly

"Twenty-eight--yesterday would have made the twenty-ninth--but we
arrived before noon."

"Twenty-eight days!" repeated D'Esmonde, pondering.

"Ay, and nights too! But remember that Vradskoi Noteki is three hundred
and eighty versts below St. Petersburg."

"I know it well," said D'Esmonde, "and with a heavily loaded carriage
it's a weary road. How did she bear the journey?" said he, in a low,
scarcely uttered whisper.

"Bear it I----better than I did; and, except when scolding the
postilions for not going twelve versts an hour, in deep snow, she
enjoyed herself the entire way."

D'Esmonde gave a knowing look and a smile, as though to say that he
recognized her thoroughly in the description.

"You know her, then?" asked the courier.

"This many a year," replied the Abbe, with a faint sigh.

"She's a rare one," said the man, who grew at each instant more
confidential, "and thinks no more of a gold rouble than many another
would of a copeck. Is it true, as they say, she was once an actress?"

"There are stranger stories than that about her," said D'Esmonde. "But
why has she come alone? How happens it that she is here?"

"That is the secret that none of us can fathom," said the courier. "We
thought there was to have been another, and I believe there is another
in the passport, but it was no affair of mine. I had my orders from the
Prince's own 'intendant,' who bespoke all the relays for the road, and
here we are."

"I will explain all the mystery to you at another time, courier," said
D'Esmo