Soldiers may, and, doubtless, have a multitude of faults; but the tenderness and care which they can sometimes exhibit towards the weak and the suffering, forms a strange contrast with the savage fury they display under excitement. Nothing could exceed the kindness, the diligence, the attention with which they crowded round to give assistance to poor Louise, one cheering her with a kindly word, another bringing in the pillions to make a comfortable seat for her, a third rushing in with his arms full of apple-branches, which he had torn down from the neighbouring trees, and which, placed on a hearth that we found in the inner room, soon raised a cheerful and a blazing fire. Moric Endem, for his part, brought from his saddlebow an appendage without which he never travelled, and which, on the present occasion, proved of the utmost service. This was a gourd, dried in the form of a bottle, and filled with excellent wine, and I insisted upon Louise drinking some, which, I believe, more than anything, prevented her from suffering severely. Some more piles of wood were soon brought in, together with other cloaks; and Moric and the rest, having seen that everything had been done to make Louise as comfortable as the circumstances admitted, retired into the larger division of the barn, to provide, as best they might, for the passing of a long winter's night, Moric leading the way, and saying, "Better leave the seigneur and his cousin alone. I dare say they have a great deal to say to each other." "Is he her cousin?" I heard one of the men say as they went out, turning at the same time to Andriot; "I thought most likely he was her lover." "He is her cousin," replied Andriot. "You might almost call them brother and sister, indeed, for they have been like such all their lives." I had, indeed, always felt so towards Louise de Blancford; I had loved her as a very dear sister, with whom no word had ever been exchanged but that of kindness and affection, and such had been simply my sensations till the moment when, quitting her father's house, I sought my own fortunes in the wide world. I have said that then a dream came up before my eyes; that a vision of future happiness connected itself with the remembrance of Louise, that I felt that I could not be happy, that I could not even figure to myself a state of happiness without the dear, the beloved companion of my infancy and my youth.