———————————————————— Sm
= Bellefonte, Pa., May 7, 1926.
———————————————
THE PACKAGE OF SEEDS.
I paid a dime for a package of seeds
And the clerk tossed them out with a
flip:
“We've got 'em assorted for every man’s
needs,”
He said, with a smile on his lip.
«pansies and poppies and asters and peas!
Ten cents a package! And pick as you
please!”
Now, seeds are just dimes to the man in:
the store,
And the dimes are the things that he
needs;
And I've been to buy them in seasons be-
fore,
But have thought of them merely as
seeds.
But it flashed through my mind, 2s xX
took them this time,
“You have purchased a miracle here for
a dime!”
“You've a dime’s worth of power which
no man can create,
You've a dime’s worth of life in your
hand!
You've a dime's worth of mystery, des-
tiny fate,
Which the wisest cannot understand,
In this bright little package; now, isn’t
it odd?
You've a dime's worth of something
known only to God!”
These are seeds, but the plants and the
blossoms are here
With their petals of various hues;
In these little pellets, so dry and so queer,
There is power which no chemist can
fuse.
Here is one of God's miracles, soon to un-
fold;
Thus for ten cents an ounce is Divinity
sold!
—By Edgar A. Guest.
THE EXILES.
The Princess and the Count sat
on a bench in the sunshine of the
Casino gardens.
The Count’s age might have attain-
ed the grand total of twenty-five
summers. His dark mustache was
far too small to shade a shortish up-
per lip and the tiny triangular patch
of close-cropped beard on the point
of ‘his chin did no more than lengthen
a little the still boyish contour of his
smooth cheeks. A stringless monocle
gave to one brilliant eye a somewhat
unnatural fixity, but the other gleam-
ed with amusement, daring, insouci-
ance, defiance and that sudden sweep-
ing melancholy which is the inherit-
ance of the Slav. He spoke a fluent
mixture of tongues based on the
quick, soft Russian that makes one
think of a brook slipping over sharp
little stones. He was dressed in the
captain’s uniform of a regiment once
well known around Tsarskoe-Selo and
the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg,
and from time to time he rose punc-
tiliously to salute some grand blesse’
— mutilated Tommy or Poilu, crawl-
ing on the arm of a blue- or gray-
veiled war nurse. For this was in the
spring of 1919.
The Princess’ attire was hardly less
polyglot than the Count’s brisk con-
versation, for, while her little sable
cap spoke of the white steppes of her
birth, the black pinafore she wore had
penty to say for the unspottable, in-
destructible qualities that have made
it a favorite of French schoolrooms
for generations, while the scuffed
boots on her slim feet fairly shouted
of America via the Russian Refugee
Relief Association.
In her arms she clasped a large and
forlorn doll with a painted cloth face
above which her own, thin, small and
pale, looked a little too mature; at
times almost old with the age that is
of experience and not of years.
Just now she was happy and her
very dark blue eyes sparkled.
“And the Grand Duchess said ... 7”
she prompted, trying to mask eager-
ness under a properly well-bred de-
tachment.
“Princess, I will come to thats First
let me tell you how she looked stand-
ing there, blonde comme les bles, with
an emerald at her breast of lilies as
big .... as big ..” He hunted
breathlessly for a smile, found none
and cupped his hands about an invisi-
ble orange. “As big as this, per
Bacco!”
“The gift of .... ?” the Princess
nodded with a sapience slightly start-
ling in one of her scant ten years.
¢ Qlien sabe?” the Count deprecat-
ed chivalrously. “At any rate, the
old gray wolf, her uncle, stood behind
her scowling, ma foi!l—at the touch
of my lips on her hand, and I think
he would have started forward with
some harsh command, but, just at
that moment—‘Bo-Zhe Tsar-ya Kra-
ni ....” ” he intoned the national
anthem under his breath, “the swords
snapped to salute, the great doors at
the end of the hall swung open, and
thera ...... there ..... Oo
“The Tsar!” she breathed, her teeth
slipping over her pale lip, that would
quiver with childish excitement.
The young man nodded. “But in
that moment of brouhaha, while the
band crashed and the swords swish-
ed through the perfumed air, she
managed, the divine lady, to whisper
a word slipped under her fan and my
blade to my very heart, and that word
was—to-morrow!”
“To-day ?” the Princess just ¥nan-
aged to whisper.
“To-day.” He compressed his lips
and looked unutterably mysterious.
“And more, when at three this morn-
ing I reached my apartmeni on the
Nevski, what should I find but—" He
hesitated. “If you would so kindly
send the Princess Olga to play for a
moment. Little pitchers, you know.”
With a glance of age-old under-
standing the Princess carried her
charge to a bench a few feet away,
disposed her gently on a tattered
square of brownish flannel, and re-
turned on winged feet.
“You found ?—Continuez
‘Monsieur de Suvarav!”
“In the turned-back cuff of my
dress tunic, a scrap of paper—"
done,
«A billet-doux!” exclaimed the
Princess, trying to look shocked.
“On it the words, ‘Three o'clock.
Park gate. Bring the Princess.’ ”
Trained woman of the world though
she was, 1 fear the Princess uttered
a sound curiously like “Oooh!” before
she composed her wits and manners
to the consideration of what was evi-
dently a delicate problem of conduct.
Seeing her hesitate, the Count pro-
ceeded dreamily:
“The big troika with the three
great black Orloff courses will wait
at the gate in the gleaming snow. We
will fly like lightning under branches
bending so deep with the weight of
snow that they brush our heads. Far
back in the forest a wolf or two will
bay, but the silver bells on the tall
yoke of the middle stallion will drown
them out. :
“The hunting lodge—you know it,
Princess. We will come to it at sun-
set, and the crimson sky will outline
its three pepper-pot towers and the
folded slate roof that holds long fin-
gers of snow in its steep crevices. It
will be almost too dark to make out
the cavern of the low, nail-studded
door, but at a shout from our coach-
man it will open on a square of can-
dle-light, golden on the snow.
“And old ’Stacha will take our furs
in the warm hall, carpeted with the
pelts of great beasts. And then Ve
will go into a room with soft reddish
leather on its walls and a little paint-
el ikon in one corner. And there will
be a man in a blue emboidered blouse
with a balalaika on his knee, and a
thousand songs of old Russia in His
head; and a tea—Bozhe’ moi, Prin-
cess, what a tea there will be! White
vodka for me and a thimbleful apiece
of mahogany-colored Tokay for you
and the Grand Duchess, and big gray
eggs of caviar in a block of packed
snow, and a samovar—"
“Silver!” interjected the Princess.
“Do vot! Silver, of course, on one
end of the lace cloth. And there will
be smoked sterlet and scarlet radishes
and golden-brown kalatches, and lit-
tle thin sandwiches of the freshest,
crispest rye bread, fragrant with ani-
seed, and bonbons glaces tasting of
kirsch in their little paper shells. . .”
The two young faces were growing
more alike moment by moment, but it
was not the sort of likeness that it is
pleasantest to see in young faces.
Their lips looked just a trifle breath-
less and bluish, and were parted in
an expression a little too hungry to
be strictly becoming.
The Count stopped with a quick
half-sigh, and for a moment they sat
silent, trying to readjust themselves
‘to the hard sunlight of the Mediter-
ranean and the subtropic vegetation
of the carefully combed and manicur-
ed Casino gardens. Then the Princ-
cess made a gesture truly in keeping
with her exalted rank. Fumbling in
the ‘pocket of her rusty black pina-
fore, she drew there-from with infin-
ite precautions a very small tablet of
Chocolate Menier, which she snapped
neatly in half. One piece was re-
turned to its original repository while
the other >a theld out delicately to
the pensive Count. He started.
“No—Princess!” he exclaimed.
“You overwhelm me but—but I am
not hungry, I assure you. Besides,
I should fear to deprive you.”
“We are always a little hungry,
no?” she said wistfully. “And you
are not taking it from me, I assure
you. It is Olga’s piece and—" she
looked sideways at the doll on the
next bench and finished bravely,
though she lowered her voice; “I
sometimes think she does not really
need it!”
At this noble treachery the Count
rose to his feet and, taking the choco-
late, bowed so low over the donor’s
hand that his forehead all but touch-
ed the chilblained knuckles.
“From my heart I thank you,” he
said. “I confess now that I am most
hungry. And it is an honor to accept
what is so graciously offered.”
The Princess bowed sedately in re-
turn; then, with as much tact\as ma-
ternal solicitude, rushed .to her Olga
with a ery of “Ciel, ma fille!” as she
rescued the miserable object from the
patch of shade which had crept un-
noticed over her end of the bench.
“Still delicate of the throat?” the
Count inquired sympathetically.
“The climate does not agree with
her!” Olga’s mother confided with a
look of exquisite tenderness at her off-
spring. “Sometimes I fear I shall
have to—to—to to give up my beauti-
ful villa here and take her to .. .. ..
America!”
“Ah, America! By the way, this
morning I have news from there.”
“The Countess Natalya Mikhaii-
ovana, she is well?”
“My sister is well and—er—has
joined the household of richissime
America nobles.”
“Oh. A lady-in-waiting.”
“Precisely,” assented the Count,
suppressing a wry smile. He did not
enjoy the mental picture of his proud
Natalya adorned with the lace cap
and apron that are the badge of office
of such ladies-in-waiting.
“And your cousin Yegor Sergeie-
vitch 7”
“He is in business in a large city
called, if I remember rightly, Passaic,
N. J. Something important to do
with automobiles, notably the cele-
brated voiture Henriford.”
“He will make very much money,”
the Princess nodded as one in touch
with the world of finance. “And then
he will come back and put the next
Tsar on his throne and we will all go
home and be happy again. And
Petya ?”
“Akh—Petyal” The Count showed
his white teeth in a genuine grin.
“That rascal may really make all our
fortunes yet. He has gone to the
western part of the country and plays
before the cinema. Yegor writes me
that he has appeared already in one
production most curiously entitled
‘Atmosphere. *
“It will be one of those mysterious
dramas like the one you took me. to
on the Condamine five Sundays ago,”
the Princess opined. “A play in
which for many acts nobody knows
who he is,” she added with perfectly
unconscious accuracy.
She began to wrap Olga in the
square of flannel and preen her shab-
by little
self in evident preparation
for departure.
“It gets late.” She measured the
shadows with a practiced eye. “We
will walk around to the front of the
Casino and then, if you would be so
very kind as to remind my grand-
father .. ....”
‘The Count rose at once, though the
task of shepherding the morose old
aristocrat was anything but to his
taste. Together the odd pair made
their way to the front of the huge
pile. It was here that Suvarov had
first noticed the patient child daily
waiting as he emerged each afternoon
from his seance at the tables. After
about a week he had spoken to her,
drawn by the proud forlornness of the
little thing. From her description he
had no difficulty in establishing her
kinship to the tall and threadbare old
man who, for a few modest five-franc
notes at the dead hour of the after-
noon, earned his claim to sit at the
edge of a sheet of green baize, end-
lessly figuring on pieces of squared
paper with a gnawed pencil.
He had recognized the type at first
sight; the exiled nobleman who, hav-
ing scraped together a couple of thou-
sand francs, goes to Monte Carlo in
the desperate hope of wresting a com-
petency from the goddess who never
smiles on actual need. With some-
thing of a shock, Suvarov had been
forced to admit that he himself was
of that brotherhood. For two months
he had been in Monaco for no other
purpose, and his luck and self-res-
traint had generally enabled him to
make his meals with a little left over
toward his bill at a small hotel. But
that first revealing glimpse of Prince
Tcherbatzkoi had suddenly disgusted
him with the whole penny-cadging
business. He gave up regular at-
tendance at the Salle de Jeu from that
day, left hotel for still cheaper quart-
ers at the pension patronized by the
Tcherbatzkois, and determined to drift
through life for as long as his money
held out—a possible six weeks. He
set himself to this with the fatalism
of a Russian and a man whose whole
future has been blotted out by a cat-
aclysm which has left him stunned
as well as bereft of all that formerly
constituted existence.
The thought of the revolver at the
bottom of his little tin trunk was an
efficient talisman against vain regrets
and vainer ambitions; daily conver-
sation with Nadia Tcherbatzkaia pre-
served his sense of humor; Turkish
tobacco, an occasional ticket to opera
or movies, and the tinny pension
piano provided him with as much en-
tertainment as a right-minded man
need have.
Thus it may be seen that, for all
his bright eyes and inherent dandy-
ism, Suvarov was achieving spiritual
detachment.
Prince Tcherbatzkoi, on the other
hand, had clearly practiced no such
absentention. In him, rage and hat-
red had culminated in a sort of chron-
ic anguish of the soul, of which _the
sunken fire of the eyes, the twisted
liplessness of the mouth, were easily
discernible stigmata. Suvarov tehkd
commiseratingly to himself "as#he
crossed the main gaming-room to
stand unobtrusively beside the old
man: he was thinking of the child
outside the building.
He negligently threw a five-franc
chip en croix on four numbers. He
could not afford it, but its immediate
loss enabled him to say gayly, “The
goddess turns her face away from me
this afternoon, mom prince. Does
she smile on you?”
“Nothing smiles on me,” Tcherbat-
zkoi answered in a rough whisper. He
looked even more desperate than
usual.
“S07?” the young man’s voice was
of the cheeriest. “Perhaps the Prin-
cess Nadia would prove an exception
to that rule if we were to join her. I
think I caught sight of her outside
the Casino a moment ago.”
“Nadia dogs me incessantly!”
Tcherbatzkoi retorted angrily. «
shall have to forbid her the gardens.
Am I a child?”
Nevertheless he rose almost im-
mediately and the two men, one shab-
by and shambling, the other jaunty
and slim, made their way to the Place.
On the way home it was Tcherbat-
zkoi who took the lead at a rapid,
shouldering crawl, while the two oth-
ers followed rather silently in his
wake. He stopped only once, at the
English chemist’s, outside of which he
gurdy bade his granddaughter await
m.
Her blue eyes crept apologetically
to the face of Suvarov, whose exis-
tence the old man had rudely ignored.
“I think poor Grand-pere has pains
in the heart again,” she murmured.
“They make him—quite forgetful.”
Suvarov parted from his compan-
ions at the pension gate with a quick
salute and formal little bow. He was
in the mood of walking and strode
rapidly through the narrow town and
up the steep paths that led to the
Prince of Monaco’s gardens.
Arrived at the summit, he perched
on a stone wall from where he could
see the whole panorama of the bay
and its encircling hills and he remov-
ed his monocle. Without it, his face
appeared to sag into lines of discour-
agement and defeat.
He sat for an appreciable time
without moving, then pulled a flat
leather purse out of his pocket and
counted the contents: twenty-seven
francs and a few coppers, besides a
couple of five-franc chips. This rep-
resented the sum total of his wealth.
True, there was the gold bangle set
with three or four small diamonds.
He considered it in the fading light,
the last link with an affair of the
heart that had once filled his world.
But though sentiment had faded,
there was a kind of inelegance, to his
thinking, in turning any woman’s gift
to profit. :
Methodically, for he had climbed
this hill resolved to make a thorough
canvass of his resources and inten-
tions, Suvarov drew an envelope from
his pocket.
It ‘had come at the same time as
those from America, but was post-
marked Paris. He had not told the
Princess about. it... There was just
enough daylight left to read it by,
pausing at every sentence to stare at
the red and green entrance lamps
flashing up at the gates of the harbor.
It was written in the variety of
! tongues that the Count himself af-
| fected and came from a close friend
' and brother officer who was at present
driving a taxicab in Paris.
It began exuberantly:
My Kyril, I kiss you on both cheeks
.and have found you a position! A
| riding master is wanted at a school
! of equitation of the most chic in the
{Rue des Belles Feuilles. He must
{ know something about both horses
i and women, for the work seems to be
largely with the fat wives and daugh-
i ters of the war rich. He must be
' guaranteed not to elope with the first
{ Miss or Mrs. Munitioneer who throws
{herself at his head. In fine, a gentle-
man.
with the help of that snapshot of you
—joli coeur!—taken on the terrace of
Hospital 521 convinced him that I had
his man. He will pay two hundred
francs a month and lodging—the
| three rooms over the stable occupied
by the last incumbent. He had a wife
;and two babies; you can have a dog
‘and a piano.
| there is a small kitchen, so that would
!at least solve the problem of your
meals. I almost forgot your tips,
which in a school of that character
ought to be worth something.
Golupchik, do not delay! This op-
portunity will not come twice. Our
ten times less attractive. Make haste,
1 implore you!
loves thee, Sascha.
Poor Sascha—a simple soul! But
it was a few minutes before the in-
dignant flush called up by that sinis-
ter word—*“tips”’—had faded from the
Count’s expressive face.
Sascha probably took tips—taxi-
man’s tips; two sous for a “course”
and five for an hour’s run.
port, poor brute. Suvarov fervently
America, and he knew she would not
Russian snows, happier far than their
relatives who had escaped. :
Two hundred francs a month! Five
years ago he was paying twice that
for a tete-a-tete supper at the Tour-
d’ Argent.
He closed his eyes and saw Prince
Tcherbatzkoi hunched angrily over his
eternal calculations. Natalya in cap
and apron. Sascha stopping at every
uplifted finger along the greasy curb-
stones of Paris. Yegor and Petya...
0 Bozhe!
At least they had a reason for it.
Yegor and Sascha had wives and
her former fiance, now totally dis-
abled by the war and dying by inches
in Paris. Petya was young, and had
a right to life. By “young,” the
Count meant that Petya was about
five years junior to himself, and had
gone through but one year of the
soul-shattering war.
And Nadia Dmitrievna had given
him, Suvarov, half her chocolate!
The Count drew a shuddering sigh
and put his hands over his face.
“Even if one wanted to, how would
one have the right?” the full, fallen
night heard him remark plaintively
to nothing in particular, but in an-
other moment he had straightened his
shoulders, screwed his monocle back
in his eye, and started down the hill
at a smart pace, humming the latest
impropriety from the Folies Marigny.
When he reached his room, he went
about certain preparations briskly,
though without unseemly haste. First
he wrote a short letter to his friend
‘Sascha, stamped it and set it prom-
inently on the mantlepiece. The two
five-franc chips were next placed in
an envelope addressed to the pope of
the orthodox chapel, with instructions
to have them redeemed at the Casino
and the proceeds given to the poor.
Suvarov chuckled till his monocle
dropped out at the mental picture of
the fat and bearded pope invading the
edifice of Monsieur Blanc. The small
change he put on the table where he
supposed his landlady would find it;
she was a good old soul and the fun-
eral might entail some slight expense.
Lastly he slipped the gold bracelet off
his wrist, touched his lips to it and
twisted about it a bit of paper on
which he wrote:
“To my friend, the Princess Nadia
Dmitrievna Tcherbatzkaia.
Homage and farewell,
Suvarov.”
Then, as one who has learned to be
off his smart though somewhat worn
tunic, brushed it thoroughly, removed
a minute spot with gasoline, exchang-
ed its service ribbons for a full com-
plement of full-dress medals, and
hung it neatly on the back of a chair
not too close to the bed on which he
stretched himself.
He was just inserting the ugly gray
barrel between his white teeth, try-
ing to think only of how unexpected-
ly large it seemed and how, in spite
of his careful wiping, it still smelled
unpleasantly of oil, when he heard a
gentle tap on his door.
The Count was a brave man. He
had fought brilliantly in two armies
—the Russian and the French. He
had been wounded twice, and decorat-
ed four times. He had once cruised
a mine field in a “sub” for fun and
often flown over the lines as a pass-
enger for sport. He had even cross-
ed Russia from end to end since the
fall of the monarchy. Nevertheless,
the very timeliness of this interrup-
tion caused his hair to prickle at the
roots and a cold sweat to break out
on his forehead.
“What is it?” he called faintly, al-
most breaking his teeth on the barrel
of the revolver, which, in his agita-
tion, he had failed to remove from his
mouth.
“Jt is I—Nadia Dmitrievna,” came
a timid voice.
The Count struggled with an insane
giggle of reaction. ;
“Princess, a thousand pardons.....
I am—I am dressing.”
“Would you be so kind as to.....
Zhedayu schastya. Thy friend who !
careful of a failing wardrobe, he took |
dress quickly ?” the Princess persist-
Something was clearly wrong. Suv-
arov stuffed the revolver hastily un-
der the blanket and went to the door.
The child stumbled a little as he flung
it open, as though she had been lean-
ing against it.
“I regret to disturb you,” she be-
gan politely, then, lifting an utterly
colorless face, “Oh Kyril Mikhailo-
vitch, I cannot wake him!”
“Your grandfather? I go,” he said,
and was off, coatless, down the hall.
By the time she had caught up with
him, at the side of the old Prince's
large armchair, Suvarov had slipped
a certain box of little white pellets
into his breeches pocket and, to the
! doctor, half an hour later, he said:
| I burned up three tires getting to
i the fellow who owns the place, and
Or else get married— '
. troop in.
people here fight like wolves for jobs '
“It is clearly the heart. Only this
afternoon his granddaughter spoke of
the pains in his heart. Did you not,
dusha moya ?”
“She was alone with him when it
happened ?” the doctor asked.
“He fell asleep in his chair soon
after we came home. I wanted to
wake him for supper. I could not,”
the little girl murmured dazedly.
The busy and somewhat blase doc-
tor nodded and filled out the certifi-
cate without further comment.
As soon as he had left, the other
boarders at the pension began to
They were all Russians,
and most of them brought gifts of
candles they could ill afford, to place
around the dead man’s bed. They
brought, also, the depressed, voluble
-fatalism of their race and condition.
i
|
1
{
|
i erous in the matter of sheets.
In the corridor outside, Suvarov,
who bad resumed his tunic on which
the fulldress medals honored the dead
in a way he had not foreseen, stopped
the Baroness Thalieff.
“And—Nadia Dmitrievna,
ness. What of her?”
“Akh, poor little pigeon,” the baro-
ness answered uneasily, “it will have
Baro-
But to be the Aeuvre des Enfants Refu-
Sascha had a wife and child to sup- gies, I fear.”
“You could not, perhaps....” Suv-
thanked the God he did not believe arov suggested humbly.
in for his absolute freedom. Natalya |
was self-supporting; he had bled him- : ders.
self white to pay for her passage to child no family?”
The Baroness shrugged her shoul-
“I have my little boy—has the
The Count shook his head. He had
accept another penny from him. The gathered from the Prince’s rare mo-
rest of his large family lay under ments of expansion that he and his
granddaughter had been the only
members of their family to get out
of the inferno. Nadia would indeed
have to go to some charitable insti-
tution, there to be lumped in with all
kinds and classes and types. Poor
little sensitive delicate thing!
“God help us!” Suvarov breathed
deep down in his soul, momentarily
forgetting to disbelieve.
When all the visitors had left, he
went into the silent room and bent
over the child, sitting stiff and tear-
less in the chair that had been her
grandfather’s. The doll Olga, the
children; the Prince his Nadia. Nadia | last thing left in life to cling to, was
had pledged herself to the support of |held tightly in her arms.
“Did you have some supper?” he
asked gently.
“I tried,” she whispered.
“Kharasho! Now, will you come
upstairs with me for a little 7”
Shé looked up at'the bed: "The land-
lady, for all the disturbance entailed
by a death in the house, had been gen-
Amid
snowy linen lay the gaunt aristocrat.
His folded hands were as white as
the wax of the candles, whose pure,
soft light seemed to have laved all
the anger out of his face.
“I must stay with him,” she told
Suvarov, wrinkling her brow to re-
member the dismal proprieties of the
occasion. “A member of the fam-
ily....” she closed her lips quickly
on a rising sob.
“In that case,” the Count decided
quickly, “it will have to be the Prin-
cess Olga. Is she not your child?”
A shade of human warmth came in-
to Nadia’s face but she gazed up at
the young man as though wondering
whether he could possibly be jesting
at this awful time. His face was re-
assuringly grave.
“Come,” he went on. “His Excel-
lency would wish it.”
‘He took the doll from the small
mother’s arms and sat it decently on
the vacated chair. As he prepared to
leave the room with Nadia he turned
for a last look at the watcher and the
watched, and his thumb automatical-
ly traced the sign of the cross.
Up in his room he took the little
girl shyly on his knee. He wished
she would relax and cry but she was
as still as though holding her breath,
and as wooden in his hands as the
doll downstairs.
He was silent for a moment and
began to talk, slowly at first but
gathering impetus as he went along:
“I think,” he said, “that the Prince
is very happy to-night. He has met
your gallant father who fell so glor-
iously at the head of his troops in the
Pripet marshes. He has kissed the
forehead of your lovely mother, who
was called to happiness in the streets
of Moscow a year ago. Cousins,
nephews, his two brothers, his belov-
ed parents are crowding around him,
as well as the venerable ancestors
who had left this earth long before
he reached it. They all come up and
kiss him on both cheeks and say ‘Wel-
come, Aleksei Ivanovitch. We are
happy to have you with us at last.
We have been waiting for you many
years.’ And he laughs and talks as
he has not done for a long, long time.
But his heart swells as he thinks of
his dear Nadia whom he has left be-
hind. He cannot help worrying.
Then the others say, ‘Bah! Has she
not that good-for-nothing Kyril Mik-
hailovitch to take care of her? What
are his broad shoulders worth if they
cannot carry the weight of a little
princess no bigger than a snow-
flake!’
The Count paused for breath. God
knows he had not meant to say just
that, but the words had apparently
been forced out of him by the increas-
ing pressure of a child’s tired head
on his breast. He continued:
“They take hands, all that noble
company of the Tcherbatzkoi, and
slowly, with your grandfather in their
midst, they march up a tremendous
avenue, twice—four times as wide as
the Promenade des Anglais at Nice
and lined with the shades of all the
gallant soldiers who died fighting for
their country and their Tsar, so you
can imagine how lang itt must be!
But there is neither time mor fatigue
in that place, so it hardly seems ten
minutes before they ceme to a palace
—Bozhe moi, Pri ,. what a palace:
that is! The steps are of jade—many
flights—and the great lions guarding:
the bottom of each flight are each cut
out of a single st. One hun-
dred and fifty-four of them, as I live!
Each flight of steps has six lions, so
we will calculate tomorrow on a piece
of paper how many flights: there are:
—1I cannot do it in my head. And as:
for the rest of the palace, I declare
I am so dazzled by the blaze of pre-
cious stones that I cam hardly see
whether the main doers are sapphires:
or emeralds. At any rate, they swing:
open as the people march up the
steps, and a man in uniform, with a
little pointed beard and eyes that are
not sad any more, comes out slowly
before them. And with one voice, a:
voice so tremendous that Heaven it-
self is shaken, the people begin to
sing.... tosing....”
For the second time that day the:
Count’s light baritone voice swung in-
to and steadied under the tremendous
burden of the Russian National An-
them. Out of the respect for thin.
walls and testy neighbers he sang in
hardly more than a whisper, but his
soul was .in that whisper. At the
end of the one verse, Nadia was scb-
bing quietly, her eheek pressed
against the braided frogs of the
young man’s tunic.
_ Sitting there, stroking: her limp,
silky hair and murmuring that she
was his darling, his dushenka, his lit-
tle dove with blue eyes, the Count’s
eyes would stray to the narraw bed
in the corner, where the pressure of
his body was outlined in a shallow
trough. There was a lump under the
blanket which he bade himself vre-
member to take out before the slavey
came to turn down the covers for the
night. Nadia would be sleeping
there to-night, while he watched
downstairs in the light of many can-
dles.
Unconsciously his brow went up in:
a whimsical grimace, half surprised,
half regretful. “Ah well....Niche-
vo!” he murmured to himself, then
felt for his monocle and screwed it
firmly in his eye.
“Princess,” he said, “do you like:
horses, and is Paris a city that meets
with your appreval 7”
“Paris?” wondered the Princess,
catching her breath in a last, shaky
sob.
“To-morrow night I must go there.”
Suddenly she flung her thin arms
around him as far as they would
reach.
“And take you with me,” he finish-
ed importantly.
“Y ou—you cannot take me to Paris,
Kyril Mikhailovitch,” she faltered
with sad wisdom. “You have no
money.” :
Suvarov fished in his pocket for a
letter which he dangled before her,
‘his eyes dancing.
“Do you see this?” he inquired,
turning it round and round in one
supple hand with the dexterity of a
conjuror. “Look hard at it, for it is
Story No. 6. :
a magic letter—a bottle full of Djinni.
Small and thin though it looks, it con-
tains Paris. And a residence of my
own. And horses to ride whenever I
like. And the most beautiful Prin-
cess in the world to keep house for
me. And two - hundred francs a
month. Not to mention—” he falter-
ed, gulped, but finished gallantly, “—-
not to mention the large sums I ex-
pect to make in tips!”
Downstairs, a smile seemed to hov-
er for a moment over the still fea-
tures of a dead nobleman and a bat-
tered rag doll. But perhaps it was,
after all, only the flickering of the
yellow candlelight.—From the Wo-
man’s Home Companion.
Flower Lovers are Worst Foe of Wild
Flowers.
The spring finds thousands of motor-
ists in the country searching for wild-
flowers and frequently loading down
their cars with flowering branches of
shrubs, plants and ferns.
It is usually the flower lovers more
than those who care little for wild
flowers, who cause the greatest de-
struction of the rare beauty of wood-
ed areas, says Dr. E. M. Gress, botan-
ist, State Department of Agriculture.
As a timely and friendly warning
to flower lovers, Dr. Gress has issued
the following statement: “At this sea-
son of the year, hundreds of beautiful
spring flowers catch the eye and glad-
den the hearts of the flower lovers who
in their delight and enthusiasm will
be tempted to pluck them and carry
them home where they will soon with-
er and lose their beauty. It is these
flower lovers, in their thoughtlessness,
who are indeed responsible for the
scarcity and destruction of many of
our rare wild flowers. Often they
gather every specimen from a colony
and cause its final disappearance from
that particular spot; thus the rare
beauties are driven farther and farth-
er from the cities and centers of pop-
ulation.
“Those who care little for the wild
flowers, usually pass them by unno-
ticed or with a mere glance of appre-
ciation and are, therefore, rarely if
ever, responsible for their destruction.
It is indeed the flower lover who is
most frequently the flower foe. Of
course, these depredations are not
done with intention but through
thoughtlessness, selfishness or ignor-
ance. Let every flower lover think
twice before he plucks once the flower
which needs protection and which may
bring joy to the hearts of others who
subsequently pass by.”
Independence Square May be Heroes’
Tomb.
Burial of two unknown soldiers,
Union and Confederate, in the same
grave as observance of the Sesqui-
Centennial of Independence, has been
recommended to the Government by
unanimous vote of the Americaniza-
tion committee of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars. They proposed Inde-
pendence Square, Philadelphia, as a
fitting place.