occur? Tell me everything," cried he, impatiently.

"You shall know all, dearest Frank. Yoo have heard how Lady Hester
Onslow carried me away with her to Italy. Nelly has told you how we
were living in Florence,--in what splendor and festivity; our palace
frequented by all the great and distinguished of every country,--French
and German, and Spanish and Russian."

"I hate the Russians; but go on," said the boy, hastily.

"But why hate the Russians, Frank?" asked she, reddening as she spoke.

"They are false-hearted and treacherous. See how they have driven the
Circassians into a war, to massacre them; look how they are goading on
the Poles to insurrection. Ay, they say that they have emissaries at
this moment in Hungary on the same errand. I detest them."

"This may be their state policy, Frank; but individually----"

"They are no better; Walstein knows them well."

"And who is Walstein, Frank?"

"The finest fellow in the service; the one I would have wished you
married to, Kate, above all the world. Think of a colonel of hussars at
eight-and-twenty, so handsome, so brave, and such a rider. You shall see
him, Kate!"

"But it's too late, Frank," said she, laughing; "You forget it's too
late!"

"Ah! so it is," sighed the boy, seriously. "I often feared this,"
muttered he, after a pause. "Nelly's letters told me as much, and I said
to myself, 'It will be too late.'"

"Then Nelly has told you all, perhaps?" said she.

"Not everything, nor, indeed, anything at all very distinctly. I could
only make out what seemed to be her own impressions, for they appeared
mere surmises."

"And of what sort were they?" asked Kate, curiously.

"Just what you would suspect from her. Everlasting fears about
temptations and trials, and so forth, continually praying that your
heart might resist all the flatteries about you. The old story about
humility. I thought to myself, 'If the lesson be not more needful to
Kate than to me, she runs no great risk, after all!' for I was also
warned about the seductions of the world! a poor cadet, with a few
kreutzers a day, told not to be a Sybarite! Returning wet through from
a five hours' patrol, to burnish accoutrements in a cold, damp barrack,
and then exhorted against the contamination of low society, when all
around me were cursing the hardships they lived in, and execrating the
slavery of the service!"

"Our dearest Nelly knows so little of the world," said Kate, as she
threw a pass