"as other soldiers take theirs. But we shall be a strong and wary
company; and I have passed already unscathed through many perils.
You will not forget us when we are gone, Susanna? I shall think of
you sitting beside this comfortable hearth, when we are lying out
beneath the frosty stars, with the world lying white beneath us,
wrapped in its winding sheet!"

"Ah, you will suffer such hardships! they all say that."

There was a look of distress in the girl's eyes; but Fritz laughed
aloud.

"Hardship! what is hardship? I know not the name. We can track game
in the forest, and fish the rivers for it. We can make ourselves
fires of sparkling, crackling pine logs; we can slip along over ice
and snow upon our snowshoes and skates, as I have heard them
described, albeit I myself shall have to learn the trick of
them--for we had none such methods in my country, where the cold
could never get a grip of us. Fear not for us, Susanna; we shall
fare well, and we shall do the work of men, I trow. I am weary
already of the life of the city; I would go forth once more to my
forest home."

There was a sparkle almost like that of tears in the girl's eyes,
and a little unconscious note as of reproach in her voice.

"That is always the way with men; they would ever be doing and
daring. Would that I too were a man! there is naught in the world
for a maid to do."