ns have not their affections
in such practical and estimable control. Though, to be strictly just, it
is young men who are guilty in this respect, much more than the maidens
with whom they fall in love. It is rare, in fact, that a young girl is
oblivious to the practical side of that which many mothers teach them to
be the business of their lives. But then it is very rare that a girl is
in love with the man she marries. Sometimes she thinks she is. Sometimes
she does not even go so far as that.

Netty was, no doubt, engaged in these and other golden dreams of
maidenhood as she walked in the Saski Gardens this March morning.
The faces of those who passed her were tranquil enough. The news of
yesterday's doings in St. Petersburg had not reached Warsaw, or, at
all events, had not been given to the public yet. Even rumor is
leaden-footed in this backward country.

Presently Netty sat down. Martin had never kept her waiting, and she
felt angry and rather more anxious to see him, perhaps, than she had
ever been before. The seats were, of course, deserted, for the air was
cold. Down the whole length of the gardens there was only one other
occupant of the polished stone benches--an old man, sitting huddled up
in his shabby sheepskin coat. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, or in
the dull realization of his own misery, and took no note of the passers.

Netty hardly glanced at him. She was looking impatiently towards the
Kotzebue gate, which was the nearest to the Bukaty Palace of all the
entrances to the Saski Gardens. At length she saw Martin, not in the
gardens, but in the Kotzebue Street itself. She recognized his hat and
fair hair through the railings. He was walking with some one who might
almost have been Kosmaroff, better dressed than usual. But they parted
hurriedly before she could make sure, and Martin came towards the gate
of the gardens. He had evidently seen her and recognized her, but he did
not come to her with his usual joyous hurry. He paused, and looked all
ways before quitting the narrower path and coming out into the open.

Netty was at the lower end of the central avenue, close to the old
palace of the king of Saxony, where there is but little traffic; for the
two principal thoroughfares are at the farther corner of the gardens,
near to the two market-places and the Jewish quarter.

It thus happened that there was no one in Netty's immediate vicinity
except the old man, huddled up in his ragged coat. M