duchesses waited for us. Most of the spectators were provided with flowers and cigarettes, which they showered upon us as we passed. A procession of priests met us, and a Te Deum was chanted in the open air, after which the commanders received bread and salt. As the soldiers went on through the city, their ranks were broken, and women and children were mixed up with the rows of bayonets. Mothers who had found their sons, girls their lovers, and children their fathers, walked quietly along, some of them sobbing and crying, while the bronzed faces of many of the men were working with emotion, and there was hardly a dry eye among them. An officer endeavored to put the intruders out of the ranks, but the Tsarevitch forbade it; so the mothers and sisters and wives marched the three miles with the soldiers, receiving fresh instalments by the way; and at last there was quite a crowd of families. Many poor fellows had been buried nameless in the trenches, and it was only when their places were seen to be filled by others that their friends knew that they would never come back."
Sacha positively waxed eloquent as he related this, and I felt almost angry with George for not displaying more emotion. "You were there too?" I asked him.
"No; I was at death's door with the fever, for the second time."
I could not restrain a smile. "You seem to have passed your time during the war struggling with fevers."
He laughed good-naturedly. "Very true; and extremely unpleasant it was, I can assure you."
4
