to tell each other, for a great deal had
occurred during their eight months' separation, and it was late when
they left the table.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Wallace's "Russia."]

CHAPTER VIII.

AN UNWILLING CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY.

On the following morning the Count bethought himself of the Jewish lad,
and the reflection that he had harbored one of the despised people on
his estates for an entire night, rekindled his anger against the whole
race. He rang for Ivan and strode impatiently up and down his
well-furnished library until the coachman appeared.

"Tell the Countess that I await her here, and then bring me the boy you
found on the road!"

Both Louise and Jacob made their appearance shortly after. Jacob had
been washed and his hair combed, and not even the Count could deny that
he was a lad of uncommon beauty.

"What is your name?" interrogated the Count, with the air of a grand
inquisitor.

"Jacob Winenki."

"Where do you live?"

"In the Jew lane," answered the child, slowly.

"But where? In what town?"

Jacob hung his head. He did not know.

"How did you come here?" was the next query.

Then Jacob related, with childish hesitancy, how the soldiers stole him
and his brother from home and took them to a big city, and how he and
Mendel ran away and were caught in a storm. Further information he could
not give, having no recollection of anything that happened from the time
of his lying upon the highway until he found himself in the _droshka_
with the ladies.

"You say that the soldiers came to your house and took you and your
brother away?" asked the Count.

"Yes, sir."

"What did they want with you?"

"One of them said he would make _goyim_ (gentiles) of us," answered the
boy, in his native jargon.

"I see," said Count Drentell, as the truth dawned upon him; "you were
taken to become recruits. So you escaped!"

"Please, sir, Mendel and I ran away. We wanted to go home to father and
mother."

"Were there more boys with you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did they run away, too?"

"I don't know."

"There is not much information to be obtained from the child," said
Drentell, angrily. Then pointing to the boy's face and arm, he asked:

"Did that happen to you on the road?"

"Oh, no; that happened at home," answered Jacob, tearfully; and he
related the story of the cow and the farmer, the details of which were
too deeply impressed upon his memory to be soon forgotten.

Louise understo