isting in gold and jewels? Natalie knew only that she
had been robbed of a noble, spiritual possession--that they had murdered
the friend who had consecrated himself to her with such true and devoted
love, and, weeping over his body, she dedicated to him the tribute of a
tear of the purest gratitude, of saddest lamentation.

But so imperfect is the world that it often leaves no time for
mourning--that in the midst of our sorrow it causes us to hear the
prosaic voices of reality and necessity, compelling us to dry our eyes
and turning our thoughts from painfully-sweet remembrances of a lost
happiness to the realities of practical life.

Natalie's delicately-sensitive soul was to experience this rough contact
of reality, and, with an internal shudder, must she bend under the rough
hand of the present.

Pale, breathless, trembling, rushed Marianne into the room where
Natalie, in solitary mourning, was weeping for her lost friend.

"We are ruined, hopelessly ruined!" screamed Marianne. "They will drive
us from our last possession, they will turn us out of our house! All the
misfortunes of the whole world break over and crush us!"

The young maiden looked at her with a calm, clear glance.

"Then let them crush us," she quietly said. "It is better to be crushed
at once than to be slowly and lingeringly wasted!"

"But you hear me not, princess," shrieked Marianne, wringing her hands.
"They will drive us from here, I tell you; they will expel you from your
house!"

"And who will do that?" asked the young maiden, proudly rising with
flashing eyes. "Who dares threaten me in my own house?"

"Without are soldiers and bailiffs and the officers of the Russian
embassy. They have made a forcible entrance, and with force they will
expel you from the house. They are already sealing the doors and seizing
everything in the house."

A dark purple glow for a moment overspread Natalie's cheeks, and her
glance was flame. "I will see," said she, "who has the robber-like
boldness to dispute my possession of my own property!"

With proud steps and elevated head she strode through the room to the
door opening upon the corridor.

The bailiffs and soldiers, who had been placed there, respectfully stood
aside. Natalie paid no attention to them, but immediately advanced to
the officer who, with a loud voice, was just then commanding them to
seal all the doors and see that nothing was taken from the rooms.

"I wish to know," said Natalie