hka?"

The girl laughed--rather a forced laugh, perhaps; she could not
altogether shake off the consciousness of the peril that surrounded her
lover.

"Why, mother, you are a pretty courier! You are about to cross the
Channel, and you do not know which way the wind is, or whether the sea
is rough, or anything. Now I will tell you; it is I who am the courier.
The wind is northeast; the sea was quite smooth yesterday evening; I
think we shall have a comfortable passage. And do you know why I have
brought you away by this train? Don't you know that I shall get you down
to Dover in time to give you something nice for dinner; then, if the sea
is quite smooth, we go on board before the people come; then we cross
over to Calais and go to a hotel there; then you get a good, long, sound
sleep, you little mother, and the next day--that is to-morrow--about
noon, I think, we go easily on to Paris. What do you think of that,
now?"

"Whatever you do will be right, Natalushka; you know I have never before
had a daughter to look after me."

Natalie's programme was fulfilled to the letter, and with good fortune.
They dined in the hotel, had some tea, and then went down through the
dark clear night to the packet. The sea was like a mill-pond; there was
just sufficient motion of the water to make the reflections of the stars
quiver in the dark. The two women sat together on deck; and as the
steamer gradually took them away from the lights of the English coast,
Natalie sung to her mother, in a low voice, some verses of an old Magyar
song, which were scarcely audible amidst the rush of water and the
throbbing of the paddles.

Next day the long and tedious railway journey began; and here again
Natalie acted as the most indefatigable and accomplished of couriers.

"How do you manage it, Natalushka?" said the mother, as she got into the
_coupe_, to this tall and handsome young lady who was standing outside,
and on whom everybody seemed to wait. "You get everything you want, and
without trouble."

"It is only practice, with a little patience," she said, simply, as she
opened her flask of white-rose scent and handed it up to her mother.

Necessarily, it was rail all the way for these two travellers. Not for
them the joyous assembling on the Mediterranean shore, where Nice lies
basking in the sun like a pink surf thrown up by the waves. Not for them
the packing of the great carriage, and the swinging away of the four
horses with their j