"Hark'e, Clara! when a woman has been forced to keep house alone for so long a time, and to defend herself and family by the might of her own arms, she comes at last to feel herself a man all over. That is why our mistress looks as stern as if she had never been a girl." "But tell me, Aunt Magdalene," returned the girl, drawing her chair nearer, "shall we never see master again?" "Alas! God only knows," replied the old dame, sighing. "How can I tell when the poor fellow will be released from his captivity? I always had a presentiment that it would come to this, and I said so, but no one heeded me. It happened in this wise. In the days when our Prince George[7] of blessed memory, not content with his own land, must needs set out to conquer Poland at the head of the Hungarian chivalry, our good master, Sir Michael, went with him. Oh, how I tried--and our lady too--to keep him back. They were a newly-wedded couple then, and the good gentleman himself had little heart for war--he always preferred to sit at home among his books, his water-mills, and his fruit trees--but honour called him and he went. I begged him to at least take my son Andy with him. God gave me that thought, for otherwise we should never have heard again of our gracious master, for when his Highness, our Sovereign Prince George, beheld the bestial hordes of Tartars marching out against him, he himself galloped off home, leaving his nobility captives in the hands of the heathen, who dragged them off in fetters to Tartary. My son Andy, who was of no use to them, for he was badly wounded in the thigh, and therefore could not work, they sent home; he brought the tidings that Sir Michael was sickening in sad confinement, and the Tartars, perceiving how high he stood in the esteem of his fellow-prisoners, took him for their prince, and set upon his head such a frightfully high ransom, that all his property turned into gold could not have paid it off. Nevertheless our noble lady rejoiced exceedingly when she heard that her husband was still alive, and ran hither and thither and left no stone unturned to raise the money. But neither her kind friends nor her dear relations would lend her anything--no, not on the best security, for no one willingly lends on land in time of war. So she sold her treasures, her bridal dower which her mother had given her; all the beautiful silver plate, jewelled bracelets, and embossed gold and pearl ornaments which her ancestors had handed down to her; her large satin-trimmed, fur-embroidered mantle and her filagreed _mente_[8]; her rings, agraffes, and hairpins; her carbuncle bracelets and orient pearls; her diamond ear-rings--in short, everything which could be turned into money. Yet even all that came to not one-half of what the Tartar demanded, so what does she do but farm the estates of her sisters, plough up the fallow-lands, and cut down the forests to make way for corn-fields. To find time for more work, she turned night into day.