A tent erected for the officers and their friends stood on our left, and, forming part of a privileged party, we entered it. A long table, supplied with the daintiest of viands, provided by the citizens, extended through its entire length. Many ladies were present, some weeping bitterly. Few waited for a formal introduction before exchanging words. "Your son, madame? it is from him you are about to part?"--"And my husband, madame. All my other sons are there already. May God help and protect them!"--"Amen!" is the involuntary answer. The officers--most of them chatting, and many of them even laughing gayly--are drinking wine, exchanging felicitations and good-wishes, and touching glasses across the table. In the midst of all I spied a mouse--a tame one, surely--careering about at pleasure. But in another minute the aspect of affairs had changed. The word of command had suddenly been given, the officers marched out, the troops crouched in such numbers on the platforms rose promptly to their feet, grasping their knapsacks; and then the women's arms were bound fast around the necks of those stepping, now fast, according to orders, into the carriages immediately facing them. The notes of the Russian hymn rose and fell from time to time: many of the voices were more than half choked. In flocked all, the sobbing women left behind, with heads wrapped up in the thick woollen Russian shawl or extemporized _bashlik_, "crossing" their departing friends three times in earnest and true Russian fashion, praying Heaven to bless them. And then all waited, all was ready: the long line of carriages was already moving off. "Preicheit!" ("Good-bye!") rose from the lips of those around, but the word was quickly supplemented by another more suggestive of pleasantness--"Dussvedinia!" ("Au revoir!"), which was echoed again and again. The train moved now more quickly. The soldiers shouted, cried and laughed alternately, waving their caps in signal of adieu. "What matters it?" shouted one: "we must all die once." The officers grasped firmly the hands of those yet marching bareheaded by their side along the platform: the lonely women left behind, many of them gray-headed, fell, some of them, senseless on the ground. E. S. A MISSING ITEM.