“DEAREST ALEXIS:--It is now two months since you left us, and it seems a year. I have counted the very hours since your departure, and could I have foreseen the weariness, anxiety, and longing that your absence has occasioned, I had never consented to your enterprise. When I think that you will be two thousand miles from Tobolsk when this reaches you, I am really sick at heart. And yet nothing has happened to give us any particular cause of anxiety. Indeed, our condition has rather improved. The governor’s lady bought the lace collar which I wrought, and has since taken other articles, and she has paid me well for them. The governor himself has noticed me kindly, though there is something about him I do not like. He smiles when he meets me, and flatters me very much; but still, his dark brow frightens me. However, I must not offend him, for he is not only kind to me, but he has called upon our poor father, and expressed his desire to make his exile as little painful as possible. What all this means I cannot say, but I hope it proceeds from the kindness of his heart. “Do you remember young Suwarrow, who was at our house, while the Princess Lodoiska was concealed there? He was somehow concerned in aiding her escape; and after her departure, I had never seen him till he came here. He is of Polish birth, but his family is Russian, and he is now an officer of the castle in Tobolsk. He arrived about the time you left us. He soon found us out, and has been to see us frequently. He is a noble fellow, and, though a Russian soldier, seems to possess the heart of a Pole. It is a great comfort to find such a friend, and I think it the more fortunate, that he and father seem to like each other so much. The only thing about it that troubles me, is, that he seems to dislike my going to the governor’s house, and is very careful to conceal his visits, so that they may not be known to his commander. What does all this mean? “You will hardly expect me to tell you any news, for we see little of society, and in fact we are almost as much lost to the world, as if Tobolsk were a prison. The only thing of particular interest that has occurred, is the arrival of several Polish exiles. Some of them are of noble families, and father’s heart has been wrung to agony for them. Alas, that the love of one’s country should be a crime, for which banishment to this dreary land must atone!