“I wrote to Walstein, telling him that if I could not obtain my freedom otherwise, I would desert. A copy of my letter, I know not how obtained, was sent to my Colonel, and I was sentenced to a month's arrest, a week of which I was to pass in irons. They now made me a rebel in earnest, and I came out of the 'stockbaus' more insubordinate than I went in. It would weary, and it would fret you, dearest sister, were I to tell all the petty schemes I formed of resistance, and all the petty tyrannies they brought down upon my head; the taunt of my 'gentle blood,' my 'noble origin,' my 'high descent,' being added to every cruelty they practised, till I was ready to curse the very name that associated me with this bitterness. They told me that a second desertion was always punished with death, and that even the attempt was accounted as the act. I resolved, then, to finish with this dreary existence, and I wrote a farewell letter to poor Nelly, telling her that, as I was certain of being taken, these were the last lines I should ever write. In this I repeated all I have now told you, and a vast deal more, of the hardships and indignities I had endured; and this, like my former letter, was sent back to me. Then came three months more of durance, after which I came out what they deemed a good soldier.” “Subdued at last!” sighed Kate. “Not a bit of it. Like a Banat charger I had a kick in me, after all their teaching and training. I found out the lance-corporal of our company was the man who had discovered my letters. I sent him a challenge, fought, and wounded him. Here was another offence; and now the Minister of War was to deal with me himself; and I half fancied they would be glad to get rid of me. Far from it The 'stockhaus' again, and short fetters, my wrist to my ankle, were the sovereign remedies for all misdeeds. In this plight I made my entrance into Vienna.” “Did you never think of Uncle Stephen all this while, Frank,----never appeal to him?” “Ay, Kate, and what was worse, _he_ thought of _me_, for he had my punishment-rolls brought to him; and although from some good-natured interference they did not forward more than a fourth of my misdeeds, there was enough to condemn me in his eyes, and he wrote, 'No favor to this cadet,' on the back of my certificate.” “Poor boy! so friendless and deserted.” “Persecuted by creditors, too,” continued Frank, as, excited by the recital of his sorrows, he paced the room in a transport of anger; “fellows that never rested till they got me in their books, and now gave me no peace for payment. Out of three kreutzers a day, Kate,--a penny English,--I was to discharge all the debts of my extravagance, and live in style! A Dalton, well born and nurtured, in a position of ignominious poverty!” “Not one to aid you?”