unknown future seemed, the tidings she received of Kate and Frank
were still sadder.

From her sister she never heard directly. A few lines from Madame de
Heidendorf, from a country house near St. Petersburg, told her that the
Prince had not succeeded in obtaining the Imperial permission, and that
the marriage was deferred indefinitely. Meanwhile the betrothed Princess
lived a life of strict seclusion as the etiquette required, seeing
none but such members of the royal family as deigned to visit her.
Poor Nelly's heart was nigh to bursting as she thought over her dear
Kate,--the gay and brilliant child, the happy, joyous girl, now pining
away in dreary imprisonment. This image was never out of her mind, and
she would sit hour after hour in tears for her poor sister. What future
happiness, however great it might be, could repay a youth passed in
misery like this? What splendor could efface the impression of this
dreary solitude, away from all who loved and cared for her?

Of Frank, the tidings were worse again. A short and scarcely
intelligible note from Count Stephen informed her that, "although the
court-martial had pronounced a sentence of death, the Emperor, rather
than stain a name distinguished by so many traits of devotion to his
house, had commuted the punishment to imprisonment for life at Moncacs.
There was," he added, "a slight hope that, after some years, even
this might be relaxed, and banishment from the Imperial dominions
substituted. Meanwhile," said the old soldier, "I have retired forever
from a career where, up to this hour, no stain of dishonor attached to
me. The name which I bore so long with distinction is now branded with
shame, and I leave the service to pass the few remaining days of my life
wherever obscurity can best hide my sorrow and my ignominy."

Although Nelly at once answered this afflicting letter, and wrote again
and again to Vienna, to Milan, and to Prague, she never received any
reply, nor could obtain the slightest clew to what the sentence on Frank
referred. To conceal these terrible events from her father was her first
impulse; and although she often accused herself of duplicity for so
doing, she invariably came round to her early determination. To what
end embitter the few moments of ease he had enjoyed for years past? Why
trouble him about what is irremediable, and make him miserable about
those from whom his careless indifference asks nothing and requires
nothing? Time enough