“Silent and uncomplaining, the lady sat upon the ensanguined snow, her tall, dignified form supported against an overturned cart, her child clasped in her arms. The shot had shattered both her feet, but her infant appeared unhurt, and anxiously clasped its mother’s neck with its little hands. None thought of succouring the poor creatures; all were too engrossed with their own selfish misery, and few vouchsafed her more than a passing glance as they struggled onwards. She would hardly have escaped being trampled under foot, had not her wounded horse, lashing out convulsively in the agonies of death, cleared a space around her. Whilst Bernard supported his trembling sister, Ludwig and Regnard attempted to climb over the cart which intervened between them and the wounded lady. But at that moment the noble sufferer took a strong hair-chain from her neck, twisted it, before any could stay her hand, around her infant’s throat, and with a sudden exertion of strength drew it tight. The little creature drooped its head and fell strangled on its mother’s knees. In a last frantic convulsion, the unhappy parent clasped her child to her bosom, gave an agonised sigh, a glance to heaven, and fell back, dead. At that moment Ludwig and Regnard reached her, but it was too late. Bianca hid her face in her brother’s bosom.” A fragment of a shell knocks over the faithful Willhofen. The fire from the Russian batteries becomes more terrible than ever, the crowd more agitated and frantic. “‘Let us keep together!’ cried Regnard—‘once separated, we shall never meet again.’ And he stretched out his hand to grasp that of Ludwig, when a ball passed between them, overthrowing the colonel. “‘Regnard!’ cried Ludwig, springing to his assistance, ‘are you badly hit?’ “Bernard raised the wounded man by the shoulders, and bent over him. “‘I have got my allowance,’ said Regnard, faintly. ‘Where is my little daughter?’ “Shuddering, but with resolute step, Bianca came forward, the child in her arms. She kneeled beside the dying soldier and held it out to him. Regnard looked mournfully at the little creature so soon to be an orphan. “‘Farewell!’ he said, kissing it for the last time. ‘You have no longer a father—but a mother—has she not?’ added he, imploringly to Bianca. ‘Greetings to Rasinski, if he still lives to receive them. Long live the Emperor!’ “Upon this last exclamation, uttered in a hoarse soldier-like tone, the final breath of the dying man was expended. The next instant his soul had fled.”