circumstances penetrated even to the secluded Erlach Court, and Captain Leskjewitsch, who learned it from a casual mention of it in a postscript to a letter from a comrade, was exceedingly agitated by it. He ran to his wife with the open letter in his hand, exclaiming, "Ah çà, Katrine, read that. Rohritz has lost every penny! Under such circumstances he must need entire change of scene for a time. We must invite him here immediately,--immediately, that is, if you have no objection."

For a wonder, the quarrelsome couple were perfectly at one on this point.

"I shall be delighted to see him," replied Katrine. "Invite him at once; that is, if you are not afraid of his making love to me."

The captain's face took on an odd expression. "There is no danger of your allowing a stranger to make love to you," he muttered. "Your disagreeable characteristic is that you will not allow even me to make love to you."

Katrine raised her eyebrows: "I have an aversion for rechauffées."

The captain took instant advantage of his opportunity: "You certainly cannot expect to be the first woman who I--hm!--thought had fine eyes?"

But Katrine was very busy with her household accounts, and consequently she had no time at present to indulge in her favourite amusement, a lively discussion.

"Don't agitate yourself, my dear," she rejoined, "but go and write a beautiful letter to Rohritz; and do it quickly, that it may go by to-day's post. Shall I compose it for you?"

"Thanks, I think I am equal to that myself," the captain replied, with a laugh. "Upon my word, a poor dragoon has to put up with a deal from so cultivated a woman."

As he turned to go, Katrine called after him: "I warn you beforehand that I have a weakness for Rohritz. All the rest is your affair. I wash my hands of it."

Nothing so aroused Katrine Leskjewitsch's sarcasm as the problematical conscientiousness of those young wives who combine a decided love for flirtation with a determination to cast all the blame for it upon their husbands, posing in the eyes of the world as suffering angels at the side of black-hearted monsters. Her ridicule of such women was sharp and plentiful.

"A deuce of a woman!" the captain murmured as he betook himself to his library and--rare effort for a dragoon--indited a letter four pages long to his old comrade.

His friend's epistle, strange to say, touched Rohritz. It was so cordial, so frank, and so warmly sympathetic, such a contrast to the formal assurances of sympathy which he met with elsewhere, that he accepted the invitation extended to him, and made his appearance at Erlach Court a week afterwards.

He had been here now for three weeks, and had been really content, especially during the early period of his visit, when he had been alone with his host and hostess. The arrival of the general and Stasy had somewhat annoyed him, and the news of the approach of another detachment of guests consisting, moreover, of a mother and daughter positively irritated him. Good heavens! another mother, another daughter! Was there then no spot upon the face of the globe where one could be safe from mothers and daughters?

CHAPTER III.

THE ARRIVAL.

A telegram had finally announced the arrival of the Meinecks by the 10.30 morning train at H----, the nearest railroad-station, tolerably distant from Erlach Court.

It is almost noon; the captain and Freddy have driven over to the station to meet the guests, and the rest of the family are on the terrace outside of the dining-room. The hostess, dressed as usual with puritanic simplicity in some kind of dark linen stuff, deliciously fresh and smelling of lavender, is leaning back in a garden-chair, diligently crochetting a red-and-white afghan for her little son's bed. The general, in a very youthful felt hat adorned with a feather, is chuckling in a corner over a novel of Zola's. Anastasia is fluttering gracefully hither and thither, fancying the while that she looks like a Watteau. In pursuance of her lamentable custom of wearing her shabby old evening-gowns in the country in the daytime, she has donned a much-worn sky-blue silk with dilapidated tulle trimming, and is surprised that her faded splendour appears to fail to dazzle those present.

"Life is pleasant here, is it not?" asks Katrine, looking up from her crochetting at Rohritz, who faces her as he leans against the balustrade of the terrace. "I am trying my best to induce my husband to leave the service and retire to this place. He is still hesitating."

"Hm! Do you not think that for a man of his temperament existence at Erlach Court would be a trifle monotonous?" is Rohritz's reply.

"He can occupy himself," Katrine makes answer, shrugging her shoulders.

"If I mistake not, you have rented the farm at Erlach Court?"

"Yes, thank heaven!" Frau von Leskjewitsch admits, with a smile. "Farming is usually a very costly taste for dilettanti. But he has entire control over the forests and the vineyards; they would give him plenty to do; and then he is an enthusiastic horseman, and the roads are very fine."

Rohritz is silent, and thoughtfully knocks off the ashes from his cigar with the long nail of his little finger. He cannot help thinking that Katrine Leskjewitsch, exemplary as she may be as a mother, has her faults as a wife. Jack Leskjewitsch is not yet eight-and-thirty, and she is prescribing for him a life suited to a man of sixty.

"It is certainly a pity to cut short his career," Rohritz remarks, after a while, "especially since he passed so brilliant an examination for advanced rank last year."

"Yes, his talent is indubitable," Katrine assents: "one would hardly think it of him. He devotes but little attention to study, as I can testify, and I certainly did not coach him, as did the wife of an unfortunate captain who passed the same examination." The corners of Katrine's mouth twitched. "What do you think was the end of the united efforts of husband and wife? Two weeks after barely and laboriously passing his examination the worthy man was a maniac. In fact, no fewer than seven of my husband's fellow-students in that course lost their reason. 'Tis odd how much ambitious incapacity one encounters in this world! Jack does not belong in that category, however. He adores the service, but he has not a particle of ambition."

All this is uttered with a seemingly woful lack of interest.

"'Tis a pity that she does not sympathize more fully with Les," Rohritz thinks to himself; but all he says is, "And yet you would have him relinquish his career?"

"A cavalry-man who looks forward to a career ought not to marry," Katrine maintains. "Probably you can recall the delights of a military, nomadic existence for a family, particularly in those holes in Hungary. Such hovels!--a stagnant swamp in front, a Suabian regiment installed in the rooms, and no sooner have you got things into a civilized condition than you have to break up to the sound of boot and saddle. In one year I changed my abode three times. I could have borne it all so far as I was concerned, but there was the child. Freddy became subject to attacks of fever, so I bundled him up and brought him here. He recovered immediately, and I wrote to my husband that he must choose between his family and the army."

"That was to the point, at least," said Rohritz.

"Yes. He was