“No,” said the mother, all the spirit of her race rising in her at this crisis, “no, my daughter, it would not become us, like base-born churls, thus to fly from a foe. The wife and children of Count Restchifky will meet his enemies on his own hearth-stone, all dismantled though it be.” With these words she clasped her babe closer to her bosom, and sat down again behind the parapet to await, as the daughter of a hundred princes should await, the approach of her murderers; and although perhaps her cheek was a hue paler, the lofty glance of her eye quailed not. Her daughter sank to her feet and buried her face in her mother’s robe. But after a few minutes she regained courage, and looked timidly out across the plain. At the first glance she started and said eagerly, “But see, mother, can they really be enemies? They wave their banners as if to us—they increase their speed—surely, surely that gallant horseman in the advance is my own dear father.” A moment the mother gazed eagerly on the approaching horseman, but a moment only. The eye of the wife saw that her husband was indeed there, and, with a glad cry, she clasped her children in her arms and burst into a flood of joyful tears. She was still weeping when the count, dismounting from his charger, rushed forward and clasped her in his arms. “Thank God!” he ejaculated, “you at least are left to me. I had feared to find you no more. May the lightning of heaven blast the cravens who could thus desolate the home of a woman.” “My husband, oh! my husband!” was all that the wife could say. “Father, dear father, you are safe—oh! we shall yet be happy,” said the daughter as she clung to her restored parent. The father kissed and re-kissed them all, and for once his stern nature was moved to tears, but they were tears of joy. His story was soon told. Finding that all hope of saving his country was over, and eager to learn the fate of those he had left at home, he had cut his way through the enemy with a few gallant followers. As he drew near the vicinity of his palace, he had heard strange rumors of the sacking of his home, and on every side his own eyes beheld the ravages of the foe. Torn with a thousand fears respecting the fate of those he loved better than life, he had pressed madly on, and when the blackened and smoking walls of his palace had risen before him in the distance he had almost given way to despair. But, at length, his eager eye caught sight of a group amid the ruins, and his heart told him that those he loved remained yet to cheer his ruined fortunes.