two of them in the circulating library in the town, and always try to
get them to take out a forbidden book. They are convinced that Bourget
has sounded the depths of feminine psychology. "Isn't it mean!" they
cry. "If only our brothers would let us read more of his wonderful
books!"

Sometimes, in the evening, we sit out on the balcony, and the Morowski
boys come in to talk to us.

"Aren't you ashamed to treat your sisters in this Oriental way?" I ask.

"The less they know till after they've married, the better for them. A
young girl should be pure in every thought." And then they begin to make
love to us.

There are two brothers who have taken refuge in the Tchedesky _pension_,
with a collection of servants. Their house was burned under their eyes,
and their property is now in the Austrians' hands. The eldest brother,
Count S----, is very handsome and aristocratic, with a cherished gray
mustache carefully twisted upward, and soft, brown eyes, which he uses
with advantage. Evidently the Romantic poets influenced his youth, and
he has found the melancholy Byronic traditions the most effective for
his ends, since he continues the attitude.

"He is very sad," his brother whispers a dozen times a day. "Of course
his experiences these past months have been frightful for one of his
nature. I am not so sensitive. But _he_ has always been this way.
Sometimes I'm afraid. Our other brother died insane."

Count S---- affects to believe that the Germans can do anything.

"They are devils! What can we do against them?" he cries at dinner,
combing his mustache with the little tortoise-shell comb he carries in
his vest.

He never forgets his soda tablets after eating.

His younger brother is round and red-faced, with twinkly blue eyes. He
limps, and follows his elder brother round like a faithful dog. The
slightest thing amuses him. Indeed, he laughs at nothing at all. He kept
the books on his brother's estates and he brought them with him in his
flight. They are his pride and joy. Sometimes he brings them into the
drawing-room after supper, with photographs of the property. There are
pictures of boar hunts, and huntsmen on horseback, with wolf-hounds in
the snow, and the tenants merry-making and the house and different
sections of the property, and the horses and dogs and cattle. I look at
them night after night. They love to live over again their life in
telling me about it.

Among the servants with the S---- brothers i