Another turn in the road hid the window from him. He retraced his steps for a last wave of the hand to his two good friends. But the window was closed, and the curtain was drawn so carefully that it was impossible to see whether they had gone downstairs or not. Charles breathed a deep sigh, hastened his steps, and was soon beyond the village. December was half gone. The winter had been severe. For three days, a most unusual occurrence in that village, the snow had fallen and had melted as fast as it fell. But in the open country, where it was seldom trampled, it had accumulated and was hardened by a temperature of ten degrees. The road was dazzling; it seemed as if the night had spread a carpet of white velvet, spangled with silver stars, beneath the feet of the traveller. The trees, adorned with icicles, looked like immense chandeliers. The birds fluttered along the road, anxiously seeking the accustomed food with which God provided them, but which, during the last three days, it had been so difficult to find. Shivering, and fluffing their feathers, they looked twice their natural size, and when they perched on the flexible branches, or left them to fly away, they scattered a shower of diamonds. Charles, who in after-life was so impressionable to the beauties of Nature, and who described them so perfectly, lost his sad thoughts in the picturesque scene; and, proud of this his first liberty of mind and body, with which he was entering the world, walked on without noticing the road or feeling fatigue. He had already accomplished three-quarters of the way, when, just beyond Sessersheim, he was overtaken by a little squad of foot-soldiers, about twenty in all, commanded by a mounted captain who was smoking a cigar. The twenty men were marching in two files. In the middle of the road, like Charles, a horseman--easily identified as such by his boots and spurs--was walking. A large white cloak covered his shoulders and fell to his feet, leaving only a youthful head visible, in which intelligence seemed to combine with carelessness and gayety. He wore a foraging cap of a style not in vogue in the French army. The captain, seeing Charles on the road near the man with the white cloak, looked sharply at him for a moment, and then, seeing that he was only a boy, smiled pleasantly to him. "Where are you going, my young citizen?" he asked. "Captain," replied the boy, believing that he must give a lengthy explanation, "I have come from Strasbourg, and I am on my way to General Pichegru's headquarters at Auenheim. Is that very far off?" "About two hundred paces," replied the man in the white cloak; "see, you may get a glimpse of the first houses of Auenheim at the end of that avenue of trees which we are just about to enter." "Thank you," said Charles, making ready to hurry on. "Faith, young man," continued the man in the white cloak, "if you are not in too much of a hurry you might go along with us. Then I could ask you for some news from home."