to house, giving a little money and a good deal of sound and practical
advice, listening to the old, old stories of undrained land and poor
crops, of bad seed and broken tools; and cheering the tellers with his
great laugh and some small witticism. For they are a gay people, these
Poles, through it all. "Ils sont legers, actifs, insouciants," said
Napoleon, that keenest searcher of the human heart, who knew them a
hundred years ago when their troubles were comparatively fresh. And it
is an odd thing that adversity rarely breaks a man's spirit, but often
strengthens it.

Wanda sometimes rode, but usually went on foot, and had more than enough
work to fill the days now growing longer and lighter. She, like her
father, was brisk and cheerful in her well-being--like him, she was
intolerant of anything that savored of laziness or lack of spirit. They
liked the simple life and the freedom from the restraint that hung round
their daily existence in Warsaw. But the old man watched the weather,
and longed to be about larger business, which alone could satisfy the
restless spirit of activity handed down to him by the forefathers who
had stirred all Europe, and spoken fearlessly to kings.

Wanda was not sorry when the thaw gave way to renewed frost. The snow
lay thickly on the ground, and weighed down the branches of the pines.
In the stillness which brooded over the land during day and night alike
the only sound they ever heard was the sharp crack of a branch breaking
beneath its burden. They had lived in this still world of snow and
forest for some weeks, and had seen and heard nothing of men.

"This frost cannot last," said the prince. "The spring must come soon,
and then we shall have to go back to the world and its business."

But the world and its business thereof did not wait until the brief
frost was over. It came to them that same night. For Kosmaroff was
essentially of the active world, and carried with him wherever he went
the spirit of unrest.

He arrived on foot soon after nine o'clock. He was going on to Warsaw on
foot the same night, he announced, before the greetings were over.

"And you have had nothing to eat," said Wanda, glancing at his spare,
weather-beaten face. He was the impersonation of hardness and activity;
a man in excellent physical training, inured to cold and every hardship.
He had simply opened the front door and walked in, throwing his rough
sheepskin coat aside in the outer hall. The snow w