attempting the noblest impossibility, from a divine sense of wrong done to others than himself, and duty owed by him to all men and to God--a duty become his because he alone was left to do it.

I have seldom, if ever, read a work of fiction that moved me with so much admiration.

The failures of some will be found eternities beyond the successes of others.

George Mac Donald.

CONTENTS.

FOR THE RIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

TO THE FRONT.

Let the reader's imagination carry him eastward. Let him suppose he were travelling at railway speed between Lemberg and Czernowitz, in a south-easterly direction, towards the sedgy shores of the river Pruth and the beech forests of the Bukowina, and the scenery to his left will appear changeless. His eye for miles will rest on a boundless plain, of which the seasons can influence the colouring only, but never a feature of the landscape. White and dazzling in the winter, it rises to something of a yellow brightness in the summer, wearing a neutral tint both in the autumn and spring. But on his right-hand each turn of the wheel will disclose a new picture to his eyes. He is fast approaching the towering heights of the Carpathians. Mere phantoms at first, they assume shape and substance like gathering clouds on the horizon, the mountain chain with deepening contours advancing through the violet and purple vapours of distance. And if the traveller now were able to fix his gaze a while on the monotonous plain, with its grey cottages, its poverty-stricken fields, and dreary heathlands, his would be a grand surprise in turning once more to the right. The heights have closed in--giants they, proud and solemn in fir-clad majesty. The wind, sweeping along the mountain-sides, is laden with the odours of pinewood; the air is filled with the roar of cataracts dashing through the gullies and foaming along the rocky channel by the side of the railway cutting; and athwart the narrow bands of azure, which seem the bluer for the deep-rent glens beneath, may be seen wheeling the bloodthirsty kite of the Carpathians. The very heart of the mountain chain, silent and beautiful, lies open to view. A moment only,