en free of frozen snow, bent about his elegant person and fastened
solidly round his waist, made a bell-shaped nether garment, a sort of
stiff petticoat, which rendered Colonel D'Hubert a perfectly decent, but
a much more noticeable figure than before.

Thus accoutred, he continued to retreat, never doubting of his personal
escape, but full of other misgivings. The early buoyancy of his belief
in the future was destroyed. If the road of glory led through such
unforeseen passages, he asked himself--for he was reflective--whether
the guide was altogether trustworthy. It was a patriotic sadness, not
unmingled with some personal concern, and quite unlike the unreasoning
indignation against men and things nursed by Colonel Feraud. Recruiting
his strength in a little German town for three weeks, Colonel D'Hubert
was surprised to discover within himself a love of repose. His returning
vigour was strangely pacific in its aspirations. He meditated silently
upon this bizarre change of mood. No doubt many of his brother officers
of field rank went through the same moral experience. But these were
not the times to talk of it. In one of his letters home Colonel D'Hubert
wrote, "All your plans, my dear Leonie, for marrying me to the charming
girl you have discovered in your neighbourhood, seem farther off than
ever. Peace is not yet. Europe wants another lesson. It will be a hard
task for us, but it shall be done, because the Emperor is invincible."

Thus wrote Colonel D 'Hubert from Pomerania to his married sister
Leonie, settled in the south of France. And so far the sentiments
expressed would not have been disowned by Colonel Feraud, who wrote
no letters to anybody, whose father had been in life an illiterate
blacksmith, who had no sister or brother, and whom no one desired
ardently to pair off for a life of peace with a charming young girl.
But Colonel D 'Hubert's letter contained also some philosophical
generalities upon the uncertainty of all personal hopes, when bound up
entirely with the prestigious fortune of one incomparably great it is
true, yet still remaining but a man in his greatness. This view would
have appeared rank heresy to Colonel Feraud. Some melancholy forebodings
of a military kind, expressed cautiously, would have been pronounced as
nothing short of high treason by Colonel Feraud. But Leonie, the sister
of Colonel D'Hubert, read them with profound satisfaction, and, folding
the letter thoughtfully, remarked t