"Wise or not wise, is it few doctors that I have seen? They used to go through the camp and circle around in the army staff; but when it came to anything, a battle, for instance, they were not there. Didn't the lord colonel call them 'lancet fellows'? While a man is well the doctor won't touch him, but when he is lying half alive, then the doctor will go at him with his lancet. It is no trick to cut up a man when he cannot defend himself, for he has nothing in his hand. But try to cut him when he is well, and has a gun. Oi yei! A great thing to go over people's bones with a knife! There is no good in that! But the lord colonel would rise out of his grave if he knew of this. What kind of a soldier is a doctor? Or is such a man an heir? This cannot be! The young lady will not marry him. That's not according to command. Who is he to aspire to the young lady?" Unfortunately for Mikolai the doctor not only aspired to the young lady, but even got her. Half a year later the wedding took place, and the colonel's daughter, covered with floods of her relatives' tears, and tears of the house-servants in general, but of Mikolai in particular, went away to share the fate of the doctor. Mikolai did not cherish any feeling of offence against her, for he could not, since he loved her so much; but he would not forgive the doctor. He hardly ever mentioned his name, and in general tried not to speak of him. I may say in passing that Aunt Marynia was most happy with Doctor Stanislav. After a year God gave them a beautiful boy, after another year a girl, and so on in turn, as if it had been written down. Mikolai loved those children as his own; he carried them in his arms, fondled them, kissed them, but that there was a certain vexation in his heart because of the _mésalliance_ of Aunt Marynia I noticed more than once. We had assembled one Christmas eve, when suddenly the rumble of a carriage was heard on the road. We always looked for a number of relatives, therefore my father said,-- "Let Mikolai look out and see who is coming." Mikolai went out, and returned soon with delight in his face. "The young lady is coming!" cried he, from a distance. "Who is that?" inquired my father, though he knew whom Mikolai meant. "The young lady." "What young lady?" "Our young lady." She was a sight, that young lady, when she came into the room with three children. A pretty young lady! But the old man in his fashion called her "the young lady" and nothing else.