thing only turned him from this favourite topic. I happened to say something incidentally of Paris; then he began to ask questions about the Parisian womankind, and seemed at once pleased and excited at my replies. On the whole he was not a bad fellow, this officer Rogatchev; and he wound up by sharing with me the national dish of _pierogi_, laughing all the time at the strong foreign accent with which I pronounced the word: but he did me the justice to say soon after, that in the matter of _pierogi_ my good appetite had made ample amends for my bad pronunciation. While we walked up and down the room and talked in a loud voice on trifling subjects, the other occupants of it, all Poles and young people, kept themselves apart and whispered together, directing towards me from time to time oblique and curious glances. What a striking contrast there was between their attitude of reserve and the full-blown confidence of the happy Rogatchev! While keeping up my conversation with the Russian officer, I endeavored to catch the words which were passing among my countryman. ‘From France?’ ‘Does he know anything of our people?’ ‘Do the French care about us?’ ‘Perhaps something new is about to happen.’ My emotion was great, but I had to redouble the animation with which I was describing to my new acquaintance the beauty and the glories of Paris. While so discoursing I did not omit to inform M. Rogatchev as well as the other persons present that I had come to Kaminieç to push my fortune as a teacher of languages, and that I desired nothing better than to settle in the town, though, if my interests required it, I might penetrate even to the interior of Russia. This declaration I repeated next morning at the station of police, for I was anxious to lose no time in establishing my position. The permission to remain was accorded to me without hesitation. As regarded my intention of giving lessons in private houses, I was warned that some formalities must in the first place be attended to, and that I must formally ask and obtain the consent of the military governor, of the director of the Lyceum, &c. It was not long before I obtained the necessary authorisation, and thanks to the recommendations of my officer and of other persons whose acquaintance I made on the first day,--thanks, above all, to those obliging cares of which a stranger is always the object in our country, orders for lessons came to me from all sides, and from the very first. I preferred, I must say, the houses of the different Russian officials; it was the surest way to avoid suspicion for myself, and to prevent compromising my countrymen. The offers made to me by the Abaza family were really precious, and it may be supposed that I did not neglect such connections as these; for Colonel Abaza, President of the Chamber of Finance, was a Russian functionary at once highly placed and very influential. I did not, however, refuse to attend on Polish families; but I selected those which any discovery