It was Nelly's account of her father's death, told in her own unpretending words, and addressed to one whom she recognized as the head of her house. She dwelt with gratitude on the old Count's kindness, and said how often her father had recurred to the thought of his protection and guidance to Frank, when the time should come that would leave him fatherless. It seemed as if up to this point she had written calmly and collectedly, expressing herself in respectful distance to one so much above her. No sooner, however, had she penned Frank's name, than all this reserve gave way before the gushing torrent of her feelings, and she proceeded:---- “And oh! sir, is not the hour come when that protection is needed? Is not my poor brother a prisoner, charged with a terrible offence--no less than treason to his Emperor? You, who are yourself a great soldier, can say if such is like to be the crime of one well born, generous, and noble as Frank, whose heart ever overflowed to all who served him, and who, in all the reckless buoyancy of youth, never forgot his honor. Crafty and designing men--if such there may have been around him--might possibly have thrown their snares over him; but no persuasion nor seductions could have made him a traitor. 'See what the Kaiser has made Count Stephen!' were some of the last lines he ever wrote to me, 'and, perhaps, one day, another Dalton will stand as high in the favor of his master.' His whole heart and soul were in his soldier life. You, sir, were his guide-star, and, thinking of you, how could he have dreamed of disloyalty? They tell me that in troubled times like these, when many have faltered in their allegiance, such accusations are rarely well inquired into, and that courts-martial deal peremptorily with the prisoners; but you will not suffer mv brother to be thus tried and judged. You will remember that he is a stranger in that land, an orphan, a mere boy, too; friendless,--no, no, not friendless, forgive me the ungracious word; he who bears your name, and carries in his veins your blood, cannot be called friendless.. you will say, perhaps, how defend him?--how reply to charges which will be made with all the force of witness and circumstance? I answer, hear his own story of himself; he never told a lie--remember that, Count- -from his infancy upwards! we, who lived with and about him, know that he never told a lie! If the accusation be just-- and oh! may God avert this calamity--Frank will say so. He will tell how and when and why this poison of disaffection entered his heart; he will trace out his days of temptation and struggle and fall, without a shadow of concealment; and if this sad time is to come, even then do not desert him. Bethink you of his boyhood, his warm, ardent nature, burning