provide for her most pressing needs. The mother at first refuses. There is, however, to begin with, the money which would put an end to their difficulties; and, moreover, the brilliant future for her well-beloved daughter. Finally, after many tears, hesitations, and heart-burnings, she gives her consent to the great sacrifice. The document surrendering her daughter duly signed and sealed, she receives in exchange the fifteen hundred piastres--a very feeble compensation for the treasure she was handing over: a monstrous transaction from our point of view no doubt, but less surprising in a country where one is accustomed to see a woman become an article of barter. Invested with paternal rights, M. de B---- scrupulously discharged them. He improved Sophie’s education, which, as may be easily imagined, had been more than neglected. He lavished all his care upon her, gave her professors, and, art seconding nature, Sophie at sixteen had grown into a model of beauty and perfection in every _genre_. At that time he was recalled by his Court, and, to spare his pupil the dangers of a sea-voyage, he intended to come back by way of Poland and Germany. After traversing European Turkey, he reached Kaminiek Podolski, the first fortress of the Russian frontier. The Comte Jean de Witt, the descendant of the great Dutch Pensionary, was its governor. He welcomed the noble traveller with the utmost courtesy and attention, and induced him to stay for some little time at Kaminiek; but the desire for the marquis’s company and the consideration due to his rank were not the only causes of the comte’s pressing invitation. The general had not been proof against Sophie’s charms, and had become passionately enamoured of her. Informed by her of her real position, knowing that she was neither servant nor mistress, but simply a kind of chattel for fifteen hundred piastres, he did not scruple to follow up his love-declaration by an offer of marriage. The comte, a very handsome man, and barely thirty, was already lieutenant-general, and in great favour with Catherine the Second. The far-seeing Greek girl was sensible enough not to refuse this first chance, and without a moment’s hesitation she accepted the hand offered to her.