has grown his wings, poor fellow--much good may they do him.'"

"I don't admit that," cried the Count, "Monsieur Secretary. You
please me immensely, and for fear of accident, I will have this
window barred."

With these words he drew a chair towards him, and seated himself
facing Gilbert, who could have clapped his hands at this propitious
result. Their conversation then turned upon the Byzantine Empire
and its history. The Count unfolded to Gilbert the plan of his
work, and the kind of researches he expected from him. This
conversation was prolonged for several hours.


IV


A fortnight later, Gilbert wrote to his friends a letter conceived
thus:

"Madame:--I have found here neither fetes, cavalcades, gala-days
nor Muscovite beauties. What should we do, I beg to know, with
these Muscovite beauties? or perhaps I ought to ask, what would
they do with us? We live in the woods; our castle is an old, very
old one, and in the moonlight it looks like a specter. What I like
best about it, is its long and gloomy corridors, through which the
wind sweeps freely; but I assure you that I have not yet
encountered there a white robe or a plumed hat. Only the other
evening a bat, who had entered by a broken pane, brushed my face
with its wing and almost put out my candle. This, up to the